Welcome Back to Pottersville: August 2022

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Pottersville Digest

Make me president again! And somebody get me a Diet Coke! Where's my fucking red button?

Lindsay Beyerstein pretty much nails Trump dead to rights.

Juror shopping, Tom? Really? Look, just because you're a rich fuck, it doesn't mean the rules will be changed for you.

Considering how legendarily corrupt Louisiana is and always has been, I'm amazed something like this took this long.

"One man in Miami-Dade County was reportedly arrested by a team of heavily-armed police with a helicopter, who wouldn't even allow him to dress before taking him to jail, according to his attorney."

Were they black with a swastika insignia?

The very fact that this bloated one man crime wave is still on the loose shows you the system is broken and desperately needs to be fixed.

"We are on a smooth glide path to really, really good midterm elections."

Oh shut up, Coulter. They're not taking back either chamber.

"A Republican landslide"? Hey, Rupert, that ship done sailed and its name was Titanic.

It's about time the RNC turned off the money spigots.

Another right wing scumbag bites the dust.

"I don't think about you at all." Which pretty much describes Ted Cruz's relationship with the US electorate.

Shorter Kelli Ward: "Here there be thousands of Republican criminals... So don't look there."

Your Brad o' the day.

Seriously, I'm half amazed DC didn't turn the Batmobile into a fucking taco truck

Your co-Brad o' the day.

Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91. He may have destroyed the Soviet Union but he helped save the world.

Shouldn't Crist win the election first THEN resign? (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

Why is there a KKK plaque at West Point? The academy's mealy-mouthed excuses are just that- mealy-mouthed. (Another tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.) And finally...

So, according to Trump's shyster, espionage is now a mundane crime.

Monday, August 29, 2022

Interview with Kathleen Morris

“Josie Fallon takes her future into her own hands when she finds she’s been sold to a brothel by Angel’s Refuge, the orphanage in which she grew up, escaping into the desert with two fellow refugees. In the wide-open Arizona Territory of the 1880s, they’re taken in by a compassionate former outlaw, who teaches Josie the survival skills she sorely needs. Josie’s an apt pupil, especially with a gun. When she finds out the syndicate that runs Angel’s Refuge also owns more orphanages, Josie leads her companions, including a fascinating but dangerous young man, on a vendetta ride to shut them all down. It’s not simply revenge, now it’s about justice for the vulnerable and Josie vows to give them a chance at a life they will never find on their own. Their journey takes them down dark and dangerous roads and once the wanted posters go up, Josie realizes she and her friends may not have much of a future themselves, only steps ahead of those who would stop them with a noose or a bullet.” –synopsis for Fallen Child.

This month, we profile award-winning western and historical fiction author, Kathleen Morris. Kay has written a series of standalone historical westerns that take place in or near the Arizona desert that she calls home.

15) Kay, there’s a strong element of feminism and female empowerment in your western historical fiction. So how do you know where to draw the line delineating what’s authentic from what’s anachronistic or do you care about such distinctions?

I believe that strong independent women have been around since the dawn of time. It’s the society and the restrictions put upon them, whether it’s physical, cultural or religious, that have kept many of them from their fullest potential. I write about women that defy those odds and build their lives by meeting challenges. Maybe because I have met and dealt with my challenges, I like to write about other women who’ve done the same, although their lives are much more colorful and dangerous than mine. That’s what imagination is for. So, I don’t draw that line because for me, and I believe firmly for those in the past, it’s just not there.

14) Was there really a sex trafficking ring like Angel’s Refuge in the 19^th century American southwest?

Not that I’m aware of, but there could have been. I have little faith in some people’s better angels and that’s held true through time, certainly. I came to the idea for Fallen Child through a friend whose great-uncle ran an orphanage in southern Arizona, where quite a few of the children had been travelers on one of the Orphan Trains. The Orphan Trains were started when benevolent religious societies in the big East Coast cities rounded up street urchins and what they thought were orphans, and put them on a train heading west, stopping across the country to have the children adopted into families who had shown interest. Sometimes this didn’t work out very well, although some have said it did. I have doubts.

13) According to your blog, something similar happened to us when we were in 5^th grade: You sold your first detective stories and I sold my first comic books. Our first royalties! Do you think that contributed to your becoming a professional novelist later in life?

Absolutely, although life got in the way for some time. I got a bit more sophisticated than Nancy Drew but those books were inspirational, even though I thought Nancy was sort of a wimp. I wanted to make my heroines tougher, but you can only go so far in fifth grade. True for you as well, I think.

12) Plotter, pantser or plantser?

Yeah, we talked about this and you know I don’t like labels. I get an idea, a glimmer, and then I think about it for a while, sometimes do a little research, and then start in. About three chapters in, I take a breath and figure out where it’s going to eventually go, sort of Margaret Atwood style.

11) Unlike any of my subjects, you write standalones. Have you ever been tempted to turn any of them into a series?

Yes. The Transformation of Chastity James is ripe for that, as is The Wind at Her Back. Under consideration for sure.

10) Late last month, you’d launched a novel that I was privileged to beta read earlier this year entitled Risk. Can you tell the readers a bit about this excellent story?

I’m very happy you liked it. It’s about two Nashville musicians whose dream is to be the next Civil Wars on a hard-scrabble tour that find a backpack full of a million dollars in cash in a diner. Of course, they take it. It doesn’t take long for them to realize that another much more deadly couple lost it and wants it back. A cat and mouse chase begins through the West. To make things worse, the money was part of a cartel drug deal gone wrong, and the cartel leader is after the original thieves just as the fleeing thieves are after the musicians.

I think everybody at one time or another has wondered what they’d do if they found a bag full of a lot of money and no one around to see them take it, so I wrote my version and had a lot of fun with it. I chose musicians on tour especially because I have some familiarity with the music business and how difficult it can be.

9) Most of your novels take place in the 19^th century American Southwest. Have you ever given any thought to writing a crossover featuring two of your standalone characters?

Yes, already have, in fact. A character in Chastity James becomes a major character in The Wind at Her Back, and I have additional plans for the charming Mr. Julius DeMonte.

8) The Lily of the West is partly about Big Nose Kate Haroney, the lover of Doc Holliday. How difficult or easy was it for you to do research on her life?

I first discovered her grave in Prescott, Arizona, and of course we’ve all seen a character in all the movies about the Earps and the OK Corral, where she plays a minor part. I thought she had a story that might be worth investigating and it certainly was. Kate was something special, and I wanted to tell her story in the way I thought she’d want it to be told. Much of her life was here in Arizona, and I spent many days in places she’d lived and in dusty historical archives ferreting out more.

I also discovered people had written so much utter trash about her that I had to sift through rubbish in my quest for truth, including those who purport themselves to be “historians”. That is an issue when writing about the so-called “Wild West”, I’ve found.

7) Describe your typical writing day, if there’s any such thing. Do you set daily or weekly word goals and do you draft in a notebook or laptop or both?

I don’t set goals because they annoy me, frankly. I’m rather ornery and don’t like anyone setting parameters for me, even myself. I write on a desk computer for the most part, unless I’m traveling, and then I take a laptop. There hasn’t been much traveling lately. I usually get all tasks done in the morning and then start writing in the afternoon, and sometimes it goes on into the night.

6) Risk showed that you have a great talent for writing smart, savvy contemporary thrillers. So, what’s the attraction of writing historical fiction?

Thank you. I really enjoyed writing Risk, because I love thrillers, they’re like a box of chocolates for me, but I began writing seriously again when I quit my job and took a leap of faith, because I’d been spending time at a friend’s ranch in southeastern Arizona and Kate started me on the historical fiction path. I became so familiar with so much of the territory and characters from this era that I continued to put that to use. That said, my mentor/most revered writer is Dorothy Dunnett, whose historical novels are, in my opinion, works of art in the craft of writing. UC Berkeley used to have a class devoted to her. I will never achieve her level of excellence but it’s good to have a pie in the sky goal.

5) Have any of your multiple career paths informed or influenced your work as a novelist?

Sadly, no, they only let me know what I didn’t want to be doing, but doing it because it provided me with a good income because I was very good at it. Throughout most of them, I was always careful to be sure I had my own office and a computer screen that never faced the door, because I was often doing class prep for my writing classes, or copywriting or editing for my side business. In my defense, most administrative jobs can be accomplished in four hours or less of a working day, as the pandemic has most definitely illustrated.

4) Considering that you grew up in frigid northern Michigan, how did you come to discover the American Southwest and what attraction does it hold for you besides the warm weather?

My sister-in-law went to Arizona State University, and was nuts about the Southwest, so we started investigating. Another leap of faith, sold our house and moved to Phoenix. We got lucky because what’s not to love about having your own horses, beautiful weather, friendly people and all this history to explore? Since then I’ve lived all over the West, from here to Seattle, and I pretty much like all of it. Still, I’m a desert rat and it always pulls me back in. Open skies, mountains, fewer people and less congestion.

3) What led you to create Fiona Shanahan, the heroine in The Wind at Her Back?

I spent some time in Ireland in 2018 and fell in love with the place. I particularly loved the small villages, sometimes with nothing more than a pub, a couple of shops and a few houses, but nearly always with a church and a graveyard, and an abbey or a castle not far away. Then I went to Cobh, or Cork, and thought about the immigrants who left from there, during An Gorta Mor, the great hunger, and what would’ve happened to them.

2) Is there a female subject from the Old West that you’d like to write about but haven’t?

Oh yes. In fact, I’m writing about her right now, my next book. I can’t say her name, but you’ll know soon. I’m very lucky because I’m getting a lot of support and information from her family.

1) So, what’s next for Kay Morris?

Always the next book, of course. Then, I’m thinking about a series with a character who seems to be immortal, as he keeps showing up from one century to the next. He is not, emphatically, a vampire, a werewolf or anything pop romance horror. He simply has an amazing bloodline and a very strong will.

Thank you, Robert, for your interest in me and my work, and allowing me to do this interview with you. I greatly appreciate it.

If you’re interested in learning more about Ms. Morris’ work, then follow the links below.

FB Author page

Amazon Author page

The Transformation of Chastity James.

Fallen Child.

The Lily of the West.

Blog

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Pottersville Digest

With Donald Trump, who needs spies and saboteurs?

The left has lost their minds, huh? OK, let's take stock: Who's urging the FBI to revolt against their Director and who'd appointed that Director? Who still thinks he won both elections when he really won neither? And who's using multiple exclamation points like a 15 year-old on Ecstasy? Take your time. I'll be here.

So much for NASA's reputation for hiring only smart people.

Why is this bald-headed rat fucker still on the job? Didn't Biden fill those two seats on the Board of Directors with the intention of them firing him? Why are we allowing him to destroy our postal service?

I hope to God Judge Pan does the right thing and puts the kibosh on the Random House/Simon & Schuster merger. I'm just curious about why this suit is being brought by the DOJ and not the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Never trust a Trump judge.

Just another wonderful day in Mr. Trump's neighborhood.

It's nice seeing the Democrats growing a set for a change.

"The power of Christ compels you, eh?"

Oh, I'm sure this will make her some friends on Wall Street. Doesn't mean it's still not a great idea.

Remind me agavbvin why people listen to this malignant little pygmy grifter?

Well, that's what happens when you hitch your wagon to a burning and crashing star.

This makes, what, two fatal shootings in Texas just today? How does that freedom from government tyranny feel, assholes?

Another Republican profile in courage.

"He's the one who is robbing hard-working Americans to pay for Karen's daughter's degree in lesbian dance theory." Excuse me, what the actual fuck?!"

Your Karen o' the day.

"Donald Trump can take a classified document, marked classified, and say this is now unclassified, I'm taking it with me."
No he can't and no he can't moron. Go back to turning your wife's vagina into a clown car. And finally...

What does it say when even Dutch Commandos aren't safe on America's streets?

Saturday, August 27, 2022

"The Written Word Remains"

Proving the sense of arrogant insularity with which right wingers like Donald Trump are and always will be swaddled, the Washington Post published an article today in which an unnamed aide to Trump admitted just that- That they actually thought they'd dodged a bullet after last January.

Specifically, that would be the same January 2022 in which the National Archives had been forced to go to Mar a Lago to retrieve what would be the first of three such visits (and counting). This was the culmination of a year of begging, pleading, cajoling and negotiating with a crime boss who should never be trusted to act in good faith with anyone.

Giving this sad, sordid saga a truly Theater of the Absurd feel to it was Trump toadie John Solomon releasing the four-page letter written to Camp Trump by Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist that Trump himself appointed. It was released by Solomon on Steve Bannon's podcast and, reading the previously unpublished letter, it's impossible to imagine how Solomon thought this would cast Trump in a good light on any planet or in any dimension.

I mentioned a Trump aide speaking on the record but anonymously. The quote that sticks out to me is, “I really thought that was the end of the story. We assumed he’d given the boxes back.”

Which, coming from a Trump flunky, maybe shouldn't be taken at face value. But perhaps we can afford to in this instance considering Trump's unilateral way of doing this and keeping even those closest to him in the dark. Still, considering the criminal offenses that were surely committed by this one man crime wave, it's nearly impossible to believe that anyone would think they dodged a bullet at the start of what will absolutely prove to be the biggest political scandal in US history. Yes, even bigger than the Insurrection.

It's a surreal battle that's brewing because NARA has historically been one of the most apolitical and nonpartisan agencies in the US government. For Trump to accuse them (and the FBI) of being overrun by Democrats with an agenda to take down "Trump" more than borders on the farcical. But while it may be easy to make merry over Trump's legal misery and parody of a defense, consider this other line from the WaPo article that might as well have been printed in 60 point bold:

"Boxes of documents even came with Trump on foreign travel, following him to hotel rooms around the world — including countries considered foreign adversaries of the United States."

To which any properly cynical person would ask, "Why?" That would be a rhetorical "Why" because, knowing Trump's obsessive bent with monetizing everything, we can easily form plausible theories into why he would physically take classified documents with him and into a foreign country with which we have an adversarial relationship.

The NARA's motto is "Littera Scripta Manet", which is Latin for "the written word remains." I seriously doubt if the people or person who'd chosen that motto meant the written word that remains in the bottom of the toilet at the White House or Air Force One.

Pottersville Digest

Let me guess- This asshole's a Republican. When he started screaming about political motivations, I knew which party he belonged to.

At this rate, it seems the only instance in which Republicans will outlaw rape is if it's proven the rapists are infertile.

To find a more miserable ex-president, one would have to go back to the rotting corpse of Abraham Lincoln.

Gee, and I thought this would be more successful than Trump Water, Trump Shuttle Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump the Board Game, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Taj Mahal...

Florida Man, the world's worst superhero.

Lies. That's all these cocksuckers have... lies. No competing policy positions. Just lies.

Another Nazi election-denying lawsuit gets shot down.

Well, there goes Trump's African American.

Meme intermission.

In other words, he's a senile hoarder and a pack rat.

Yeah, we've heard it all before but this assessment sounds rather promising.

Eric Adams really is a right wing piece of shit, isn't he?

Guidance Counselor: The way I see it, Marsha, after high school, I see two career paths for you.

Marsha Blackburn: What are they?

Guidance Counselor: One is a Republican senator.

Marsha: What's the other?

GC: Organ donor.

Marsha: (long pause) Which pays better? (Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

It's no wonder or coincidence that Russians and Chinese were constantly trying to infiltrate Mar a Lago. Who's to say these documents weren't already there while Trump was still in office?

"(P)rospects that Donald Trump's Truth Social will survive are growing bleak with the company that had planned to take the social media platform public now suggesting that a probable bankruptcy is on the horizon."

That would be, what, #7? And finally...

More right wing rat fuckery.

Friday, August 26, 2022

What the Redacted Affidavit Didn't Say

There is a fairly new tool in criminology called geographic profiling. It was pioneered in Canada in 1989 and has become an increasingly popular tool in criminology. The overarching concept of geographic profiling is taking a look at the locations of a string of crimes to determine the likely residence of a criminal.

While researching a novel about a decade ago, I added a new wrinkle that I called "the black hole effect". As the retired FBI agent explained it, it's the absence of evidence in a locality that could prove illuminating. Criminals such as serial killers and kidnapping rings generally don't like fouling their own nests. In the case of prolific criminals who have static residences, the very lack of crimes in their area could help geographic profilers zero in on a suspect's residence.

For instance, even though he wasn't prolific by today's standards, modern day geographic profilers had once theorized that Jack the Ripper likely lived within a 200 yard locality in Whitechapel / Spitalfields partly because none of his five canonical murders occurred on Fashion, Flower and Dean and Thrawl Streets.

So, now I'm going to bring my crime-writing nerdery out of the 19th and 20th centuries to focus on the redacted affidavit that was released this morning by the Justice Department. Left wing journalists and citizen journalists like me were quivering for evidence of a smoking gun or two only to find out there's no "there" there.

Many of the redaction were common-sensical and expected, such as the names of the federal agents who'd carried out the latest search warrant on August 8th. So, the affidavit proved to be a disappointing blob of big black holes.

But sharp legal minds such as Chuck Rosenberg's spotted something of interest outside the heavily-redacted affidavit, namely the memo attached to it. The heavy redactions are also a common tactic used by federal authorities to prevent sabotage to the investigation. Former US Attorney Joyce Vance was also on the panel and this is what she said:

"One very interesting tidbit we get from the legal memo that DOJ submitted to unseal the redacted version of the affidavit is what I think is the first effort to quantify the number of cooperating witnesses that DOJ had when they obtained this search warrant. They're talking about the need to protect their witnesses from any sort of potential harm, and they say that there are a significant number of civilian witnesses. So we don't know -- is that five? Is that 10?"

Yes, how many civilian witnesses rolled over on the fat man and, if there were many of them, why the sense of alarm?

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Pottersville Digest

The radical right wing is really trying to keep our kids in the Dark Ages.

Do you love me NOW, Dada?

"Where do you store the archives, Debra, in a broom closet? That's what I'd do. Well, actually, I've done that. It's a very beautiful broom closet, the most beautiful one you've ever seen. A lot of Chinese and Russians who've seen it have said, 'Sir, this is the most beautiful broom closet of all time', I dunno..."

It was said when the Taliban took over Kabul last August, they showed more respect to the capital's infrastructure than these yahoos showed their own.

Isn't this the same lunatic who'd chained herself to Twitter HQ's front door then had to be rescued by the NYPD?

IOW, Cracker Barrel with bloated prices.

Yeah, I'd trust a Proud Boy to manage a polling place about as much as I'd trust a rattlesnake with a silencer on its rattle.

Of course, it's all the Boomers' fault. Most, if not all, anyway. It was our parents and grandparents that fought and won a world war while simultaneously lifting our nation out of a depression. They were called "the greatest generation" for a reason and the Boomers who came after them simply did not learn and take to heart the invaluable lessons that generation left behind for us.

Yes, even Pat Cipollone said that Trump wasn't entitled to those documents.

America's wimpiest cop just got his fat ass fired. The only thing I'm wondering about is why it took three months.

Rudy Giuliani, the Phantom of Mar a Lago.

That's because Barr was his defense lawyer.

If the question is intent, then Trump already answered that question when he demanded they give back the documents that he stole.

This is why they want to ban abortion- To create a more target-rich environment.

Oh, gee, who could've seen that coming? Besides, you know, everybody.

To serve and protect... The Master Race.

Fucking right wingers. They're always the victims. And finally...

Has Megyn Kelly had her rabies and distemper shots updated?

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

What's a Little Espionage Among Friends?

(By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

Donald Trump is the bravest man I ever met!" I shouted as I shoved a homeless man into 5th Avenue rush hour traffic. I'd just come back from Bedminster, where the president is ready to decamp and head back to Palm Beach to wage a Quixotic court battle against the completely out of control Justice Department.

"Quixotic court battle?", some of you liberal fat heads may say with incipient amusement. "Surely, Trump will be protected by some of the most shockingly brilliant legal minds this side of Better Call Saul." Oh, there you would be wrong, my factually-challenged, patchouli oil-smelling friends. Trump is actually representing himself pro se.

(Not really but he might as well be since they do anything he tells them to do, like telling Christina Bobb to sign a document last June to the DOJ swearing that they got all the classified documents. Never put your name to anything when anything is in a gray area and my friend Donald lives in more gray areas than a Thomas Ince silent movie).

Anyway, Donald and I had an illuminating conversation while he packed up to go back to Palm Beach, a process that involved him trying unsuccessfully to read files marked Top Secret in bright red ink and involving lots of trips to the bathroom and much toilet flushing.

"You know, Cyril, it's amazing how much the fucking government thinks they own, like this invoice from Putin for payment for services rendered... Shit, better do something about this. You know they'd make a shit load of hay over that..." and then the president made yet another trip to the bathroom.

So, hell yes the 45th president's playing it smart and stashing these documents that are sort of his in many of his properties including Bedminster, Trump Doral and even his place in Turnberry, Scotland, where Donnie has another 11 boxes of documents in open-topped boxes that say, "Who But W.B. Mason?" on them.

"I stuck them in a bathroom then had my people there put a sign on the door that says, Hoots, man, ye don't wanna go in there! Pee yew! Let's see the DOJ go in there!" Then he pointed to his double-woven head and said with a great degree of pride, "Always thinking. Always thinking!"

I sat on the president's bed eating a bowl of McDonald's chicken Mcnuggets that he thoughtfully provides all his guests in crystal bowls all over the resort. During the packing up process, which involved flunkies carrying boxes with "Totally not top seecret files!" scrawled in black Sharpie to a broom closet in the basement, I told the president a story from my own family's history, which I now shall relate to you.

By now you may remember the legendary story of how my baby brother Cecil founded www.cecilsprays.com, the internet's first sex chat room. All was going swimmingly and the money flowed in until an ungrateful Eastern Eurotrash college student sawed off his own foot to escape what he'd uncharitably referred to as "sexual human bondage".

(Ironically, one of those who hadn't sawed off his own foot happened to be one of Melania's kid brothers in what would be known as the Czech Republic. "You don't know definition of sexual human bondage," she'd once sneered at me, "until you are married to Donald Trump," she concluded, leaving a space of about a quarter inch between her thumb and forefinger.)

Anyway, two days later, the prudish, liberal killjoys of the FBI burst into Cecil's SoHo loft as he was in mid ejaculation and not only arrested him but confiscated several boxes of documents in his bedroom and from our palatial brownstone on the Upper West Side.

Or rather, the FBI SWAT team did only after a fierce, and losing, fist fight with my delicate little girl, Bertha that sent eight of them to the Emergency Room at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. She claimed afterwards she was only looking out for her blubbery little uncle Cecil but I think she was actually pissed at being interrupted while listening to her kd lang CDs.

Bertha really loves music.

Anyway, we got a copy of the affidavit that got the search warrant after my baby brother was charged with human sex trafficking across international lines. Years later, when he reluctantly left Rikers Island despite its horrific reputation for prison shower rape, Cecil did the same thing my friend Donald is doing now- He demanded the return of the documents, claiming they were his.

Cecil's problem was, even though they'd long been used as evidence against him, many of the documents and files involved boys (Let's call them "young men") that could've and should've been a little older before consenting to pose for Cecil, many of them personally handpicked by Roy Cohn toward the end of his life in the mid 80s.

Anyway, the government flat out refused to turn over the documents, not the least reason of which was because they were incinerated in a special facility that the city earmarks for so-called "pornography".

"Cyril, why the fuck are you telling me this?" Donald had asked, holding a sheaf of papers with "Gold Codes" and "Top Secret" written on them. Then he made another trip to the bathroom followed by the sound of running water. My old friend came running out, his feet soaking wet.

"I gotta call a plumber!" he cried. "I think I should call that plumber that was referred to me by Putin."

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Pottersville Digest

A vote for Marjorie Taylor-Greene is a vote for lead paint chips.

Fuck you, asshole. Christianity is the addiction. And speaking of right wing lunatics in OK...

You don't get to claim ignorance about a person who's made headlines for his antisemitic and homophobic comments, especially in the age of social media that inundates us with information. Why, when she's in the middle of a major race in Arizona, would Lake then insinuate her way into a down ballot state race in Oklahoma? Maybe because that clown said something that resonated with her.

Just wait for the right wing to start screaming for the repeal of the 19th amendment.

So much for blind lady justice.

In some ways, this guy is worse than Samuel L. Jackson's character of Stephen in Django Unchained.

And Trump's so-called lawyers didn't know this "special master" dog ain't gonna hunt... why?

But, yes, let's talk about government overreach.

Meme intermission.

Meanwhile, in "liberal" Massachusetts...

"LifeGate"?! Sounds like the type of place you call to say, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

Donald Trump's own shysters just threw the fat man under the bus.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals determined that Bill Barr lied in his whitewashing of the Mueller Report.

Apparently, Trump's Save My Fat Ass PAC spent over a million and a half dollars just on shysters in the last two months alone. When are they going to stop persecuting this poor, innocent man?

What happened, was Cancun booked up for the tourist season?

The cache of stolen top secret documents found in three different searches at Mar a Lago are as damaging as Hunter Biden's laptop was supposed to be.

Oh, those rock-ribbed conservative Republican family values!

I'm really hating what this country's turning into.

It's as if Trump is silently screaming, "Please stop me before I declassify and suborn perjury again!" And finally...

"Ready, Fire, Aim". Bloody brilliant.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Pottersville Digest

Another "back the blue" Republican.

No doubt, this brilliant legal strategy came about after Trump had someone read to him the 4th amendment's Wikipedia page.

"If a well-liked Democratic member of Congress were to run against her in the Arizona primary, she will be kicked out of office."
Reuben Gallego, are we listening?

Oh, this is rich. Talk about the pot calling the kettle crimson red.

Given Republicans' historical brilliance at managing money, I utterly fail to see how this could've happened.

Rat fuckers. The whole lot of them.

"Fascist police state"? No such thing. Nothing to see here, folks.

Chad Wolf- Once a lying piece of shit, always a lying piece of shit.

$120,000 blown for a worthy cause.

Meme intermission.

I think Cohen's right. I could very easily see Trump taking down the nation along with him. And speaking of disbarred attorneys...

"And it's been a year and a half and I haven't caused any riot." You mean, unlike your client?
.

Great moments in signage

Maggie Haberman is right- The reason Trump's legal team is so thin right now is because of his reputation for stiffing people who work for him, including his lawyers.

Not surprisingly, the rats are already showing signs of road rage and wasting money on mag wheels.

Sure he will, Ozzie, because unlike you, Fetterman's going to the Senate. And finally...

Have you driven Ford to bankruptcy lately?

Saturday, August 20, 2022

What Happens After Trump is Convicted?

Considering how sluggish the Biden Justice Department has acted toward Trump and his countless crimes until the last several weeks, that's a big If.

By now, I'd think a big chunk of the US news consuming public knows the news that's come out of Mar a Lago since August 8th- That morning, the FBI served a lawful search warrant of Trump's property in Palm Beach and executed it. They got their hands on 11 sets of documents comprising some 10 to 12 boxes, making the total haul since January up to 27 boxes of documents that Trump hoarded and took to Mar a Lago, several of them so highly classified they were designated Top Secret. We learned from the documents served by the FBI that they feared some of them pertained to our nuclear arsenal.

Obviously, this is unprecedented in American history. None of Trump's 44 predecessors had such a cavalier and proprietary attitude toward sensitive documents generated during their administrations. Of course, this is largely if not entirely attributable to the fact that six years ago, we "elected" the most staggeringly corrupt crook since Boss Tweed.

So, what happens if and when Trump gets convicted and sentenced for violating any of the three federal statutes specified in the DOJ's affidavit for the search warrant?

Well, the good news is that according to legal experts, successful prosecution of any violation of those three statutes does not hinge on whether or not the documents were classified. That. of course, would automatically kneecap one of Trump's countless shifting rationales for stealing the documents in the first place.

The bad news is that those same legal experts are telling us that successful prosecution of those three statutes will not prevent Trump for running for office again in 2024. And that's because nothing supersedes the Constitution. And the Constitution is quite clear: One needs to be a natural born US resident of at least 35 years of age or a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

Of course, those conditions were written into the Constitution when 35 was considered over half the life expectancy of a US male and far before the 25th amendment was ratified. It also doesn't mention the impediments of successful impeachment.

The silver lining to the bad news is that 2024 represents Trump's last shot at stealing the presidency. By 2028, he'll be 82 years-old and MAGA world, if it still exists by then, will then be eight years into the Big Lie and, chances are, or we can hope, he'll be dead by then.

But in this, the twilight of Trump's lifetime, we have to think in the here and now or the near future and begin worrying about what will happen when and if he's convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Part of the problem is the very highly classified nature of the documents. We're talking nuclear secrets. We're talking signal intelligence. We're talking God knows what else. The list of documents sought by the DOJ on the 8th would be on the affidavit that needed to be filled and out and presented to the judge before he signed off on the search warrant.

Judge Magistrate Bruce Reinhart isn't in favor of a total redaction of the affidavit nor is he any more disposed to releasing it to the public as is. So, if and when Trump is convicted of these charges, we're not going to have a clear idea of what, exactly, or pertaining to which documents if national security prevents the court from releasing its contents. That will just feed into MAGAworld's fact-free conspiracy theories about the "deep state".

Could there another January 6th? Oh, you're damned skippy there could be. Look at what happened on the original January 6th and that was just Trump whining about losing an election. They killed at least one cop and injured over 140 others. Imagine the turnout and level of dedication and actual firepower that a Trump conviction and/or a sentencing will inspire.

So, does that mean the DOJ should just drop all charges or even not charge Trump for anything because of vague or future threats of stochastic terrorism?

Fuck no. Laws are only as efficacious as their enforcement. We let Trump walk, it'll just embolden him and others like him to commit more crimes. That's how it works with people like this. You give them an inch, they take a parsec. Not coincidentally, this is how children act. They test boundaries. And if those boundaries aren't enforced and maintained, they eventually think they can get away with anything and everything.

This is precisely the kind of childhood Donald Trump had. Where there were no boundaries, no rules because of his last name and family's fortune.

69 years after he assaulted his music teacher, here we are. A little boy still nursing an ancient grudge against a long-dead brother who gave him the only comeuppance he ever suffered in his life- Donald Trump is still picking those mashed potatoes out of his hair, still kicking in the shins everyone who knows better than him, which is virtually everyone.
All because we took too literally and seriously the hoary old adage that anyone can grow up to be the president of the United States.

And, of course, to make that work, one actually needs to grow up.