The Biggest Loser

lousubcap

Former President Trump is entering a not guilty plea following a superseding indictment last week in the election interference case against him, according to a court filing yesterday. Trump also waived the right to be present at his arraignment, where he will be charged with the same four counts from last year’s original indictment. Daniel Barnes and Dareh Gregorian report for NBC News.

A federal judge yesterday denied Trump’s request to move the New York hush money case to federal court. Judge Alvin Hellerstein found there is nothing in the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling that changes the view of the fact that the payments were “private, unofficial acts.” Kara Scannell reports for CNN; Sareen Habeshian reports for Axios.

lousubcap

Trump’s nephew: Former president ‘doesn’t give a s‑‑‑ about’ soldiers

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4859482-donald-trump-nephew-soldiers-military/?utm_

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap

F'ing awesome but standby for all the lawsuits paid by the acolytes.  

lousubcap

Finally: Top Journo Erupts at Media for Ignoring Trump’s Mental State

Mike Barnicle’s throw-down Wednesday should open the floodgates: Coverage of Donald Trump’s mental fitness for office is not just fair game. It’s necessary.

https://newrepublic.com/article/185622/finally-top-journo-erupts-media-ignoring-trumps-mental-state?utm_

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap

None of Trump’s Economic ‘Solutions’ Hold Any Water

https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/07/none-of-trumps-economic-solutions-hold-any-water/

lousubcap

From The Atlantic- (I cannot get to the full article.)

“The speed with which Trump has settled back into easy dominance of his party has been both remarkable and entirely foreseeable—foreseen, in fact, by Trump himself,” Mark Leibovich writes.

(Illustration by Ben Hickey)   Hypocrisy, Spinelessness, and the Triumph of Donald Trump BY  MARK LEIBOVICH In the summer of 2015, back when he was still talking to traitorous reporters like me, I spent extended stretches with Donald Trump. He was in the early phase of his first campaign for president, though he had quickly made himself the inescapable figure of that race—as he would in pretty much every Republican contest since. We would hop around his various clubs, buildings, holding rooms, limos, planes, golf carts, and mob scenes, Trump disgorging his usual bluster, slander, flattery, and obvious lies. The diatribes were exhausting and disjointed. But I was struck by one theme that Trump kept pounding on over and over: that he was used to dealing with “brutal, vicious killers”—by which he meant his fellow ruthless operators in showbiz, real estate, casinos, and other big-boy industries. In contrast, he told me, politicians are saps and weaklings … “They might speak badly about me now, but they won’t later,” Trump said. They like to say they are “public servants,” he added, his voice dripping with derision at the word servant. But they would eventually submit to him and fear him. They would “evolve,” as they say in politics. “It will be very easy; I can make them evolve,” Trump told me. “They will evolve.” Like most people who’d been around politics for a while, I was dubious. And wrong. They evolved."

lousubcap

Here is another piece of the above-

"Biden’s defeat of Trump in 2020 had seemed certain to weaken Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, if not end his political career. No relevant precedent existed for any one-term president to become his party’s default front-runner in the next election. Especially not an extremely unpopular one-term president who lost by 7 million votes, refused to concede, incited a lethal insurrection in an attempt to overturn the result, was impeached for a second time, defied long-honored tradition by skipping the swearing-in of his successor, left behind a traumatized nation (with 25,000 National Guard troops defending the capital against his own supporters), became the first former president to be indicted … and the rest of the whole loser litany.

LINDSEY GRAHAM
2015: “You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell”; “he is a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.”
2016: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”
2024 [To Trump]: “I love you.”

(Kent Nishimura / Getty)

TIM SCOTT
2016: “If Donald Trump can’t take a stand against the KKK, we cannot trust him to stand up for America against Putin, Iran, or ISIS.”
2024 [To Trump]: “I just love you.”

(Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg / Getty)

Yet the speed with which Trump has settled back into easy dominance of his party has been both remarkable and entirely foreseeable—foreseen, in fact, by Trump himself. Because if there’s been one recurring lesson of the Trump-era GOP, it’s this: Never underestimate the durability of a demagogue with a captive base, a desperate will to keep going, and—perhaps most of all—a feeble and terrified opposition of spineless ciphers (“weak like a baby”).

“You know what I liked about Trump?” Lindsey Graham asked, waxing nostalgic about the former president—and yearning for his return—during a speech in Nashville in 2022. “Everyone was afraid of him. Including me.” It was a killer line, Graham in his amiable-mascot mode."

CHEETO makes Nixon look like a saint!

lousubcap

Another good read from Tom Nichols of The Atlantic:

"Here is part of what he posted early Saturday evening over at his personal rantatorium, Truth Social:

CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.

This post is the 45th president of the United States putting in writing that he must win, and that after he wins, he will mobilize the machinery of government against his opponents because there was clearly fraud anyway.

(I will just note that I refuse to believe that Trump really coughed up a word like skulduggery on his own. Spelling it incorrectly does point to him, but the likelihood that someone else is writing these posts is a reminder that Trump is surrounded by people who have no objections to his plans and will willingly carry them out.)

Some of this was drowned out by Trump’s other deranged statements last week. Just before he issued his Stalinist threats, he dropped a piece of pure weapons-grade nuttery about kids getting gender-changing surgery during a normal school day in America. “Can you imagine you’re a parent,” he said at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, “and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this? What the hell is wrong with our country?”

You cannot imagine it because it’s never happened. Any parent knows that most schools completely plotz if they even have to give a kid some ibuprofen, but on Planet Trump, school nurses can apparently do surgery in the office. At the same rally, Trump threatened to round up undocumented immigrants en masse and admitted it would be a “bloody story.”

To recap: In one day, Trump threatened the use of mass government violence inside the United States, asserted that kids are getting secret medical procedures at schools, and promised to lock up his political opponents. One might reasonably assume that when Trump takes the stage with Vice President Kamala Harris tomorrow night, the first thing the moderators will ask is: Are you out of your mind?

Well, maybe not in those words, exactly. But the very first question at the debate should reflect a basic paradox in this election: How can any meeting between Trump and Harris be a “debate” if Trump has already made clear that he rejects the foundations of the American system of government?

Debates are based on good faith and shared assumptions about democracy. Trump bellows at us, over and over, that he couldn’t give a damn about any of that. He’s running because he wants to stay out of prison, get revenge on his enemies, exercise untrammeled power, and gain access to even more money. Are we really expecting a give-and-take about, say, child care (a subject on which Trump was spectacularly incoherent a few days ago) between a candidate who will govern as a traditional president and a would-be junta leader who intends to jail his opponents—including, possibly, the woman standing next to him and the reporters grilling him?"

lousubcap

CHEETO is getting his clock cleaned in the debate right now.  No surprise here-

Botch

Yeah, but F*CK ABC!  What's the sense in having muted mics if you're just going to turn them back on again (perhaps that's a strategy, but I've always been a Rules guy (yeah, I know where that got me)).  

DoubleEgger

StillH2OEgger

I can only hope that every undecided voter in the country was watching tonight.

JohnInCarolina

StillH2OEgger said:

I can only hope that every undecided voter in the country was watching tonight.

dbCooper

Taylor Swift endorsed Harris after the debate, hoping all the Swifties agree and head to the polls.

Legume

Trump walking into the spin room to hold court and explain why he won the debate smelled as desperate as axe body spray.

DoubleEgger

There was so much bait being taken last night that I thought I was watching a Roland Martin fishing show. 

DoubleEgger

The market is not pleased with the angry old man schtick last night. 

Legume

DoubleEgger

Kamala channeled her inner Frank Ricard last night. 

Canugghead

Legume said:

Don't forget Putin's lunch 🤣

Legume

fishlessman

havent seen dog eating since obama ate hitlers dog fluffy.....

dbCooper

Legume

fishlessman said:

havent seen dog eating since obama ate hitlers dog fluffy.....

Ya gotta help me out here @fishlessman - what does this even mean?

DoubleEgger

Let us not forget that Donnie twice refused to say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war. #inputinspocket. 

fishlessman

Legume said:

fishlessman said:

havent seen dog eating since obama ate hitlers dog fluffy.....

Ya gotta help me out here @fishlessman - what does this even mean?

stike clipped an old nazi movie years ago and re-edited it with forum members. hitler was told that his dog fluffy ran away and that his collar was outside the gate. was damn funny. pretty sure the dogs name was fluffy

fishlessman

this isnt stikes same makeover but you get the idea

https://youtu.be/3iWzLpNbEyI

Botch

Great lines from Late Night:
Steven Colbert:  "Kamala vs Traumala"
Jon Stewart:  "Indecision 2024: Now with 50% less old white men!"