Karma's a bitch, but basking in schadenfreude makes things better
I can hardly wait to see Donald Trump in an orange prison jumpsuit, but I'm not holding my breath on that count
Stupid is as stupid does.
- Forrest Gump
I’m smiling this morning for Stormy Daniels and Hillary Clinton, both of whom have good reason to find bucketloads of schadenfreude in yesterday’s clean sweep verdict convicting il Donaldo on all 34 felony counts. Damn, I hope it feels as good to read those words as it does to type them. In fact, if I thought y’all would read it, I’d just type “GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS!!” repeatedly until I hit a 1500-word count.
I’m happy for Daniels because she can consider herself vindicated. For all of the shit Trump supporters have put her through over the past few years, she can finally claim victory. What type of triumph remains to be seen, I suppose, but 34 felony convictions is not insubstantial.
The Duke of Shitferbrainz is in a bad way and his July 11 sentencing will tell him just how bad things may get for him. If nothing else, he will henceforth forever be referred to as “Convicted Felon Donald Trump,” and there’s not a fucking thing he or anyone else can do about it. He IS and forever more will be a convicted felon, and it’s his own damned fault. His arrogance, narcissism, and sociopathy brought him to this, and on July 11 he’ll learn what fate Judge Juan Merchan has in store for him.
Lock him up and throw the fucking key into the East River.
I could spend this whole screed gloating, but I won’t waste your time—or mine—on such pettiness. Not when there’s so much more to discuss.
has put together some very well-thought-out points relating to the conviction that are worth reading.Beutler makes his point haphazardly, but a few are very noteworthy:
Anyone who showed enough curiosity to learn how the somewhat obscure law Trump violated works, and how broadly it’s applied, has known for a long time now that this prosecution was well-predicated. The fact that Trump’s purpose in forging business documents was to gain an illegal leg-up in the election made the prosecution civically righteous.
Donald Trump isn’t just a felon, he’s also a disgrace. Like basically all politicians who get convicted of felonies he should withdraw from politics. If it were a Democratic presidential nominee, his career would be over. It won’t happen, but that’s what would be proper. Democrats should say so freely.
Because he won’t withdraw from the race, Democrats and the rest of us should follow the logic of his conviction wherever it leads. Trump should be denied classified candidate briefings, just as felons are disqualified from classified clearance. Trump should be denied the right to vote in his home state of Florida, and if Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans try to create a special exception for him, Democrats should challenge it. They should feel free to demand he be punished to the full extent of the law.
Speaking of which, Juan Merchan should give Trump a stiff sentence. Trump behaved lawlessly, the impact of his crimes was vast, and he was extraordinarily contemptuous during trial. However, Merchan went on record to acknowledge that he was reluctant to jail Trump. He should set that aside and treat Trump like any other defendant. If 12 random New Yorkers had the courage to do what they did, he should show similar mettle.
I would call it shameful for a major American party to nominate a felon for the presidency, and call on the party of Lincoln to go back to the drawing board.
I would note that felons are frequently ineligible for employment and housing, and it’s the height of arrogance for Trump to insist that he, as a felon, be eligible for America’s most important job, which comes with America’s most famous house.
I would note that an element of Trump’s crime was to cover up extramarital sex he had with porn star Stormy Daniels while his wife was home nursing their infant son; that he consummated this affair without protection; that if he’d impregnated her, he’d have paid for her abortion in exchange for her signature on a non-disclosure agreement; and that he now seeks to tell every woman in America if and when she can have an abortion.
There’s more, of course, but Beutler’s arguments are hardly hyperbolic. They’re sensible, reasonable—the sort of thing a country with a Presidential election on its hands should be asking itself. And don’t even get me started on the media doing its fucking job.
If, as Beutler says, 12 random New Yorkers had the courage and foresight to review the evidence and come to a unanimous decision that Lord Stumblefuck was guilty on all 34 counts, the rest of us should be able to exercise similar common sense, yeah?
Sadly, that’s apparently expecting FAR too much of those who’ve been propagandized beyond redemption and view the Lord Stumblefuck as the Messiah. I’m not sure whether to refer to these mental and moral reprobates as willfully stupid or beyond redemption.
Whatever descriptor may fit, it seems clear they’re beyond redemption and don’t particularly care that they’re backing a man who cares as little for them as he does for anyone else. He needs them to get elected, after which time he’ll proceed to screw them over, just as he did the first time he was in the White House.
Ah, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have time for the ritual Airing of the Petty Grievances ©.
(Here’s a news flash: Y’all are in a cult.)
Ah, but things were SO much better when Dolt 45 was President, remember?
Yes, back in the days when you could eat horse paste, drink bleach, and didn’t have to believe scientists. THAT was freedumb!!
Yeah, but now that he’s “Convicted Felon Donald Trump,” you’d think it might make a difference to people who care about doing the right things for the right reasons, right? Nah—it turns out that only holds true for Joe Biden and other Democrats. MAGAnauts don’t give a fetid shit what Republicans do. They just hate Liberals and Democrats that much—though if you ask them why, you’ll usually get an incoherent answer and/or a deer-caught-in-the-headlights stare.
They hate the Left; they often don’t know why—other than they’ve been propagandized into hating the Left. It’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s what they’ve been told to do and so they do it without question or thought.
Instead of sober reflection on a sad day for Republicans and what could’ve been an opportunity for them to declare themselves free from the toxic criminality of their Dear Leader, this is what was vomited forth from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA):
Sure, and if the same thing had happened to President Biden, Speaker Johnson would’ve been crowing about how the legal system worked as intended to root out corruption in our political system.
If you remember, the Speakers been supportive of efforts to impeach Biden, even though it’s been an “impeach first, we’ll find the evidence as we go” clusterfuck that finally collapsed from its farcical ineptitude.
Republicans believe that Joe Biden has weaponized the Department of Justice in a legal witch hunt against Donald Trump. They’ve even invented a word for it- “lawfare,” as in, “The American People see this as lawfare, and they know it is wrong—and dangerous.”
I don’t know which American People the Speaker’s been smoking weed with, but the view from where I sit is far different. “Lawfare,” if it’s even a thing, is something Republicans would pursue, not Democrats. And as an attorney, Speaker Johnson should understand that the Department of Justice operates independently from the White House. Besides, it was the Duke of Shitferbrainz who tried to weaponize it for his own political purposes when he was in office—and has promised to do so again if he wins on November 6.
It’s a tactic straight from the desk of Josef Goebbels—accuse your adversary of doing precisely what you want to do. They’ll be so busy dealing with the blowback and outrage that you’ll be able to go about your business unmolested.
The Speaker is a damned liar who cares more about political power than honesty and integrity. Then again, for someone who claims to be a “Christian” yet behaves in a decidely unChristian manner, that’s hardly breaking news.
It was not a day in which Republicans covered themselves in glory. It WAS a day when they showed their true colors as soulless, amoral, power-hungry thugs who will stop at nothing to win in November.
Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records set off a political firestorm in Washington on Thursday, with Republicans furiously lambasting the verdict as a miscarriage of justice while Democrats commended New York jurors for rendering a fair judgment in one of the most historic trials in US history.
Republicans unsurprisingly rallied around Trump, reiterating their baseless allegations that the Biden administration had engaged in political persecution of the former US president.
“Today is a shameful day in American history,” said Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker. “This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one. The weaponization of our justice system has been a hallmark of the Biden administration, and the decision today is further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents.”
Such hyperbole. So many crocodile tears. Such half-baked, poorly-considered bullshit.
What a cabal of transparently moronic, half-assed, authoritarian wannabes.
Congressman Jim Jordan, the pugnacious rightwing Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, similarly bemoaned the verdict as “a travesty of justice”, adding: “The Manhattan kangaroo court shows what happens when our justice system is weaponized by partisan prosecutors in front of a biased judge with an unfair process.”
Some of Trump’s advisers and family members were even more blunt in their assessment of the verdict. “Such bullshit,” Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s eldest son, wrote on Twitter/X.
A number of Trump’s allies predicted the conviction would be reversed on appeal and would only mobilize Republican voters in the election, while at least one lawmaker suggested the verdict would set a dangerous precedent.
“This verdict says more about the system than the allegations. It will be seen as politically motivated and unfair, and it will backfire tremendously on the political left,” said Republican senator and close Trump ally Lindsey Graham. “I fear we have opened up Pandora’s box on the presidency itself.”
This might be a good time to remind Sen. Graham that if Dolt 45 hadn’t paid off Stormy Daniels to buy her silence and falsified business records to keep the affair from becoming public in an election year, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Under New York law, paying off Daniels in and of itself is a misdemeanor. But when that act is used in furtherance of another bad act, it then becomes a felony. So, one dumb move became a monumentally stupid maneuver because no one thought to give Lord Stumblefuck good legal advice.
This isn’t about political persecution. This is about falsifying business records to keep Lord Stumblefuck’s affairs from becoming widely known and possibly harming his election chances in 2016.
So, yes, actual crimes under New York state law—34 of them altogether—all of which the jury convicted him on.
That’s not a witch hunt. That’s our judicial system at work—the prosecutor presents evidence, the defense makes their case, and the jury weighs the evidence. All of that happened as it was meant to, and the jury found Dolt 45 guilty on all 34 counts.
Game. Set. Match.
Republicans don’t have to like it, but to claim there was sinister intent afoot is beyond absurd. This is how the American judicial system works. You don’t get to burn it down because your Dear Leader was convicted of being a dumbass.
And all of the impotent whining only makes Republicans—allegedly the “Law and Order” party—look like petulant children.
Someone needs a binky.
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