Well, here we are once again. We can no longer call it unprecedented, because he is now being indicted on an almost weekly basis …
I really don’t need to rake over the latest details. If you care, you will know, if you don’t, then you most probably don’t want me to do a MeToo writeup. What may however be appropriate is a quick summary of all four, because damn, it becoming rather tricky to keep track of it all now …
- First Indictment – false accounting to cover up a $130,000 payment he made to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels to buy her silence – This one goes to trial on 25th March 2024
- The second indictment was Florida – illegally hoarding classified files at his estate there, Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to hand them back when asked – This one goes to trial on 20th May 2024
- The third indictment – two weeks ago in Washington he was accused of trying to cling to power by interfering with the 2020 election results. – This one goes to trial on 2nd Jan 2024
- Now we have the 4th Indictment … well, you know the details. This one goes to trial March 2024
- Oh and let’s not forget the E Jean Carroll defamation case that goes to trial on 15th Jan 2024, and then there is the Trump.org civil fraud suit trial that starts in Oct this year. Oh yes, also the Pyramid scheme class-action suit trial, that starts on Jan 29, 2024.
2024 is going to be a busy year for him. Will his lawyers be offering, buy 9 trials and get 10th free?
A lot of this merits a fine at most, but some of it is serious enough to merit jail time, so he could indeed be soliciting votes from a prison cell in Nov 2024.
The mind-blowing part is the observation that he will still most probably be the GOP candidate, and will also still most probably retain about 80% support from evangelicals. It says so much about the degree to which this fraud, criminal, and con-man has totally corrupted both an entire political party and also an entire religious demographic.
That’s the truly historical bit.
Here are a few more insights into the latest indictment …
- Pema Levy @ Mother Jones: Trump and 18 Allies Slammed With 41 Charges in Sprawling Georgia Election Case.
- William Bredderman, Matt Young and Brett Bachman @ The Daily Beast: Everyone Indicted With Donald Trump in Georgia.
- Andrew Prokop @ Vox: The five conspiracies at the heart of the Georgia Trump indictment.
- David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Trump Next Week: ‘Major’ News Conference, GOP Debate, Arraignment on 13 Felony Charges Including RICO.
- Sarah K. Burris @ Raw Story: Trump’s allies are already demanding Georgia laws be changed so he can be pardoned.
- Ethan Collier and Chloe Simon @ Media Matters: Right-wing media falsely claim Trump’s conspiracy charges in Georgia are “criminalization” of free speech.
I would argue that your best play is to simply laugh along with the rest of us at the utter stupidity and absurdity of what both he and his supporters are now doing.
Fun Reactions to the Indictment
Here are some details on the above …
- Jack Jenkins @ Religion News Service: Pastor indicted alongside Trump in Georgia election meddling case.
- Oh, and here is a fascinating insight into Jenna Ellis and why she has been charged
Meanwhile we now have some indictment statistics …
Other Indictment Reactions
Kandiss Taylor fumes after former President Donald Trump was indicted yet again: “We have a literal witch-hunt going on in GA against innocent men and woman and the man we elected President … Vengeance is [the] Lord’s, and it will come.”
- Apparently Kandiss, the “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” wingnut, thinks laws don’t apply to Trump and his merry band of outlaws.
QAnon conspiracy theorist Dave Hayes is confident that, thanks to Q, Trump is in possession of “all electronic communications” that will conclusively prove election fraud and soon the military will “start cracking skulls and making arrests.”
- Prediction: (One that requires no supernatural ability at all) Dave is not going to be having a good week next week.
- For those buying into what he claims, you would think losing count of the vast number of times Dave has claimed Trump is about to swoop in and start arresting people, and yet nothing happens, was a bit of a clue … but apparently not.
- Then again, the only people seriously buying into Dave’s QAnon claims these days will be the room temperature MAGA IQ folks.
- Meanwhile, will Trump be getting all that “electronic communications” via Mike Lindell?
Ali Alexander declares that “Trump will be remembered for 1000 years MINIMUM or until Jesus Christ comes back and saves us from ourselves and these retards.”
- He may indeed be correct that Trump will be “remembered”, but it really will not be for a good reason. History will not be kind to either him or MAGA.
Moving on … While the latest indictment may indeed have dominated the past week, there is also plenty of other crazy stuff out there for us to mock and laugh at, so let’s also get into some of that as well.
Christian Nationalism
Ben Quine of the Christian nationalist group Christians Engaged says that we “owe our Founding Fathers eternal, undying gratitude” for the fact that women can vote and slavery has been eliminated.
- Er … the Founding Fathers are the ones who protected slavery and denied women the right to vote. That’s all stuff we worked out a lot later after they were dead via amendments.
Charlie Kirk claims that “the entire book of Deuteronomy is a political book” that tells you “here’s how you set up the government, here’s how you should separate powers, you should have consent of the governed, you should have an independent judiciary.”
- For those of us that have actually read it … we can confirm it doesn’t.
- The weirdness in play here is that the people who, what faced with the nasty bits in the OT, claim that the NT replaces all of that, are exactly the same people who now play the “oh, look at Deuteronomy to run America!” card. So how does that work?
- Deuteronomy is actually a very pro-slavery text, does Charlie also go along with all that?
Paul Blair, co-founder of Liberty Pastors, is teaching pseudo-historical Christian nationalist nonsense during the seminars that his organization hosts for pastors: “One of the things we talk about is the Constitution and how it was modeled, quite frankly, after the Republic of Israel.”
- Er … the “Republic” of Israel in the bible was an absolute monarchy. It only manifested as a republic in 1948
Ben Quine of the Christian nationalist group Christians Engaged says that in order to have healthy society, the Bible must form the basis of all our social, financial, moral, political, and governmental activities.
- Those supporting him need to consider the thought that it means no more bacon, cheeseburgers, nylon socks, or shrimp cocktails, oh and forget about charging interest too.
- You know that it will be selective. The bits about welcoming the foreigner, forgiving debts, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick will be ignored.
- I also wonder which bible? The protestant 66 book one, or the Catholic 72 book one, and who gets to interpret it? Working that out has never been controversial, just ask the folks in Northern Ireland how it all worked out for them.
Deeply Scary News
So this happened …
- Ken Meyer @ Mediaite: Marjorie Taylor Greene Openly Floats Being Trump’s Potential Running Mate: ‘Is It Possible That I’ll Be VP?’
Perhaps the official confirmation of that is being kept under wraps until Trick or Treat is upon us.
Hypocrite of the week – Ken Paxton
Corruption of the week – Dr Steve Corsi
The Fire
The Big Lie
Joseph Farah declares that “we proved that by any reasonable assessment the 2020 election for president of the United States was rigged, stolen, robbed, filched, highjacked and misappropriated for the most immoral purposes imaginable.”
- I really do not need to tell you this, but for completeness, his “alternative facts” come via alternative media outlets.
- If you are wondering who he is, he is editor-in-chief of the whacky website WND. If you are familiar with its content, then you will know it as WingNut Daily. (It is well-known as a far-right fake news website)
Whacky Conspiracies
Lauren Witzke rants that white Christians are being replaced by immigrants who “participate in demonic religions” and are fundamentally lazy: “Nobody wants to talk about how these immigrants that we are bringing in are lazy.”
- This is not just normal crap, but merits a “Holy Crap”.
- She is basically parroting the “Great Replacement” BS. It is a concept that SPLC advises has “undoubtedly influenced” American white supremacists, potentially leading to violence.
Homophobia on Steroids
Charlie Kirk, yes him again, proclaims that those who provide treatment to transgender youth are “medieval witch doctors” who “should be put in prison”: “It comes from the pit of Hell.”
- Since Charlie is fond of promoting conspiracies regarding voter fraud, COVID, climate change is a myth, and much more, then of course he adds transphobia to his list because it gets him the funding he needs to keep the TPUSA show on the road.
- To put all that another way … the only thing that is factually “medieval” here are his superstitious beliefs.
Wild & Weird
Patrick Howley claims that young white men are the most racially profiled and discriminated against people in America: “You go into a store, and they’ll follow us around.”
- Are “they” in the store with you right now Patrick?
- He actually knows this is not factual, he just says utterly weird stuff to get attention.
Messianic Jewish pastor Jonathan Cahn warns parents that the “Barbie” movie is poisonous propaganda and recommends that they stay in their homes until “the pink plague” has passed: “Don’t lead them to the Barbie movie, lead them to God.”
- If indeed Barbie keeps the crazy people indoors, then please please roll on Barbie II, III, IV, V, VI … and also, this will mean that the Barbie movie has been far more successful than we all originally appreciated it to be.
- Least you wonder, highlights of Mr Cahn’s “career” includes the claim that Trump, the pussy-grabber and multiply indicted criminal, is a heroic biblical figure, and that Biden, the guy who really does go to church every Sunday, is “demonic”. That alone tells you just how whacky this guy actually is.
- Then again, his self-appointed title of “Messianic Jewish pastor” is also a bit of a clue regarding how whacky he is.
Stew Peters has no idea what caused the devastating wildfires in Hawaii but he’s confident that it was caused by a “direct energy weapon” and it’s up to everyone else to prove him wrong.
- Shifting Burden of Proof: “I believe unicorns and flying fire-breathing dragons are real, and it is up to you to prove they don’t” … is not how logic works. To put that another way, people who have a wild whacky claim need to prove it, you don’t need to debunk it. What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Having his career implode in the wake of reports that he had a long history of propositioning underage males certainly doesn’t seem to have dampened Ali Alexander’s raging narcissism: “I’m like this oracle of America … I’m America’s oracle. I am the oracle.”
- To be wholly clear, being gay is fine, its the underage bit that is deeply problematic
- Reminder: He has also claimed to be a time traveller and also to be just like Jesus
White nationalist Andrew Torba asserts that “God created different ethnic groups. To preserve them is to preserve God’s creation and is therefore an inherent good.”
- What happened to the Adam & Eve claim that we are all supposedly descended from just them?
- This is also a tad of an embarrassing claim for his “Christian Nationalist” claim. The very existence of the US via Europeans replacing non-Europeans is (checks notes) not “preserving God’s creation” and so needs to be rolled back.
This next one is truly wild stuff …
The False Profit$
Mario Murillo continues his crusade against the “false prophets,” declaring that Robin Bullock is a “cult leader” and Kat Kerr is “delusional.”
- He is not wrong about them … but as for him calling out the weird and fake prophecies of his good buddy Lance Wallnau … nope, he is not going there.
Meanwhile, self-Appointed “prophet” Lance Wallnau, one that is approved of by Mario Murillo above, claims that as he a praying recently, a mysterious man whispered in his ear that “Donald Trump will be elected for one more turn,” after which the Antichrist will emerge. By the time Wallnau turned around, the man had already disappeared.
- Was that wrong of me to do that to him?
- Least you wonder, Lance’s track record for anything he predicts actually happening is more or less zero. For example his prediction last April that God would be killing political leaders last May. You would think that having all his predictions fail might be a clue for those that buddy up to him and take him seriously, but apparently not.
- Meanwhile, when it comes to the antichrist belief, Trump literally ticks all the boxes, so when he appears they all rally around and vigorously supported him.
Standing across from the White House, New Apostolic Reformation “apostle” Tim Sheets sends “breakthrough angels” to destroy the “iniquitous roots of Baal that are there”: “It is time for the merger of Heaven with the Earth realm. It’s time for the merger of angel armies and the remnant warrior armies.”
- Not just your average ordinary everyday angel, but “breakthrough angels”
- “iniquitous roots of Baal” …. Oh F**k, I need to change my password again.
- How does somebody become an “apostle”?
- Christians doing bible cosplay is getting crazier by the day. Does he seriously think that the god he believes in is totally clueless about what to do until he tells him?
- Least you wonder who he is, he is part of what is known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). They are rather fond of declaring themselves to be apostles and prophets. Well-known fraudster and con man Kenneth Copeland is associated with this lot.
- I guess you can think of them as Pentecostalism on adrenaline. Their beliefs are deeply bizarre, they take biblical literalism to the extreme. In other words, not just a bit nutty, but an entire fruitcake.
Abortion Bans: Actions really do have consequences
There Really are Good guys out there in Office
Folks are tired of Lindell’s BS
Justin Baragona @ The Daily Beast: Mike Lindell’s Big ‘Election Crime’ Summit Flops at the Start.
Meanwhile …
There are protests, and then there is this …