With all due respect to Mitt Romney...

...if Trump offered me $130,000 not to have sex with him, I'd take the deal.

TPM: "Nope. Fetterman Isn't Going Full Manchin. Not Even Close."

Nope. Fetterman Isn’t Going Full Manchin. Not Even Close.
April 23, 2024

....There’s no question that Israel and Gaza are very big issues for a lot of Democrats now. And if that’s people’s reason for being upset with Fetterman, that’s certainly fair. But what we see here is a pretty concerted effort to stretch and paste and papier-mâché his position on Israel into some general apostasy or emerging Manchinism when there’s really no evidence of that. Indeed, the HuffPost article makes clear that on universal health care, income inequality, LGBTQ rights, pot legalization and criminal justice reform, Fetterman remains outspokenly where he always was.

The only other scrap the Manchinism crowd has to work with is that Fetterman has said that tightening the southern border can’t or shouldn’t be a third rail for Democrats. But it’s hard to see how that’s any different from where President Biden is on the issue, or the bill he tried to get through Congress before Donald Trump put the kibosh on it in the House.

Where Fetterman has played into this is arguably at a rhetorical level. He’s pugilistic. Many of his comments on Israel have clearly been intentionally provocative. In response to progressive/Squad-like criticisms he’s said well, I’m not a progressive. That’s you, not me. I’m not woke. But this is really no different from the kind of shoot-from-the-hip regular guy-isms that have always been his brand. It’s just that he’s using it in a fight with a part of the party that’s in his face about his dogged support for Israel.

At the risk of stating the obvious, if you’re going to be a progressive Democrat (in the generic rather than the branded Squad copyrighted sense) it’s always been clear that you’re going to be at least tonally different if your base is outside of one of the big left-leaning metroplexes. The conceit of the beltway has often been that that means you need to be more “centrist,” more business and tax-cut oriented, a bit more traditionalist on topics like abortion and LGBTQ issues. But Fetterman’s shown fairly clearly that that isn’t really the case. Often quite the contrary, especially on fiscal policy and populist economics issues...

Stinky is literally stinking up the court

це про чортів час, you fucking Putin punks

How many people died because you dragged your feet?

On this day 1863, Robert E Lee shouted "Never fight uphill, me b'hoys!" ... So beautiful

I don't know who this lawyer dude is, but he does a good job explaining Trump's legal & financial situation

Caveat: the name of his podcast "Really America Network" is unbearably hokey. I almost didn't watch cause of that. But he's a clearspoken New York lawyer and rolls out the facts in simple nonlegalese. Thought a few would appreciate this. Kick, please, so our late night friends can catch up.

Speculates on Trump's drug use or lack thereof at 3:30
Explains the financial troubles at 4:00

WaPo: "Could You Judge Trump Impartially?" 12 New Yorkers opine

Of course personally, no Trump defense attorney worth their salt (irony noted) would ever allow me on the jury. On the other hand, I like to think that I may judge Trump harshly, but I'm not prejudiced against him. I do try to be objective. If a lawyer could convince me that his hush money payment was still a legal transaction and that his fiscal monkey business was only a misdemeanor, not a felony, I could see me voting "not guilty" on the felony charges and only "guilty" on the relevant misdemeanors. I feel like I could be objective about those kinds of fine distinctions.

As a teacher, as a supervisor of teenagers who are inclined to rebel against authority, I have to make objective judgment calls all the time about teenagers kicking out their heels against the arbitrary rules and perceived humiliations at the directive of my fellow grown-ups. Sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes I'm too blunt with a kid who's really just laying his face down, not texting his friends during classwork time. I've learned it's critical to know how (and when) to question my own judgments.

On the other hand, I also am a "fool-me-twice" authority figure. When people show a disregard for the system that protects the rights of all of us, they get no slack. Punishment needs to be swift more than it needs to be sure. People who feel trapped are cats and need to herded with certainty... when they feel trapped, when they feel disinvested from the overall fairness of the system. I think of Sam Adams, that boisterous advocate of oppositional incivility and popular rebellion, who, when he heard about Shays's Rebellion, declared that the people who had the right to rebel against a tyrant had absolutely no right to rebel against a republic--despite the Massachusetts courts clearly acting tyranically against the farmers of central Massachusetts.

Of course for his part, Trump's team is probably banking on getting a sleeper agent in there. A closet Proud Boy or a too-lazy-to-protest fellow traveler from the 3%er crowd or just some bitter middle class resenter of all things foreign who wants to get into that jury and stand up for Bigot #1. As usual, the people who believe in justice are carrying the load of fairness for the slackers who mooch off the system that creates a more equitable system than allowed by a pure free market or a centrally controlled economy. But that's the price of freedom, or as JFK put it, that's where we have to step forward and ask what we can do for our country.

COULD YOU JUDGE TRUMP IMPARTIALLY?
Here is what 12 New Yorkers said

Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, to keep her from accusing Trump of a long-ago affair.

If you’re 18 years old or older, a citizen, live in Manhattan, can communicate in English and do not have a felony conviction, you are, technically, eligible to serve on a jury, according to state officials. Prospective jurors will have to answer a survey and questions from lawyers to determine whether they can judge the evidence fairly.

One prominent jury consultant said the issue is more nuanced than gauging partisanship or voter behavior. “It’s about evaluating how strongly they feel about him and his actions, and their ability to identify their own impressions about him,” says Richard Gabriel, co-author of the book “Jury Selection Strategy and Science.”

The key, he said, is “to have people talk about the strengths of their feelings about Donald Trump.” In other words, jury selection isn’t about finding people without any opinions about the former president, rather it’s finding jurors that are able to put their biases aside.

WaPo: Dude puts his "whole nest egg" into Truth Social/Trump Media stock. Price halves. He's not worried tho

The man has faith. Faith is powerful. To be fair, he's 71 and his nest egg is only $25,000.

“I know good and well it’s in Trump’s hands, and he’s got plans,” he said. “I have no doubt it’s going to explode sometime.”

Small-time investors in Trump’s Truth Social reckon with stock collapse

Jerry Dean McLain first bet on former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social two years ago, buying into the Trump company’s planned merger partner, Digital World Acquisition, at $90 a share. Over time, as the price changed, he kept buying, amassing hundreds of shares for $25,000 — pretty much his “whole nest egg,” he said.

That nest egg has lost about half its value in the past two weeks as Trump Media & Technology Group’s share price dropped from $66 after its public debut last month to $32 on Friday. But McLain, 71, who owns a tree-removal service outside Oklahoma City, said he’s not worried. If anything, he wants to buy more.

John Bolton (on CNN): Israel's response to Iran's strikes should be 'far stronger'

He's convinced Iran has nuclear weapons and says Israel's response "should not be proportionate."
If people weren't dying, I'd want to laugh at Bolton's predictability.

(Combat Veteran on YouTube) Russian State TV: Speaker Johnson is "Our Guy"!

I suspect Johnson is toying with us when he says he wants to bring Ukraine aid to a vote in negotiations. He's just fending off any "NATO-backstabber" talk.