FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2024
The candidate sounds off: In a move that has deeply surprised the experts, Candidate Donald J. Trump has sounded off again.
For Alex Griffing's report at Mediaite, you can just click here. Meanwhile, gaze on his works and despair:
Donald J. Trump: Truth Social, 4/25/24
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. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.
At Mediaite, Griffing also links to a new report about this nutcase from Tuesday's Morning Edition.
NPR's Tom Dreisbach was interviewed by Leila Fadel about an investigation he conducted. Headline included, the summary reads like this:
Trump makes more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies
With just two weeks until Election Day, former President Donald Trump has been escalating his attacks on his political rivals and what he calls, quote, "the enemy within," unquote.
Now an NPR investigation has found that Trump has made more than a hundred threats to investigate, prosecute, jail or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, including private citizens.
At this point, someone else will have to fact-check Dreisbach's voluminous work. That said, the candidate's latest post at the ironically named Truth Social site pretty much speaks for itself.
Is something wrong what Candidate Trump? Is he some type of nutcase?
At this site, we stated our basic view long ago. Last night, to our surprise, The PBS News Hour took an extremely tiny first step with respect to an attempt to come to terms with that widely disappeared question.
Is something wrong with Candidate Trump? At this site, we've long assumed that he suffers from some diagnosable form of "mental illness." The mainstream press corps has fought to the end for the right to disappear any such thoughts from a great nation's spotless minds.
Last night, the News Hour devoted nine minutes to a segment hosted by Amna Nawaz. The segment in question started like this, transcript headline included:
Trump’s rambling speeches raise questions about mental decline
NAWAZ: If he is reelected, former President Donald Trump, now 78 years old, would be the oldest president ever elected. After a number of appearances where his remarks were rambling or incoherent, and one event in which he swayed silently to music on stage for close to 40 minutes, questions are being raised about possible cognitive decline.
For the record, this segment dealt with possible "cognitive decline," not with possible mental illness. No PBS viewer would have to hear about (former) Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, or about the 37 medical specialists who contributed essays to her best-selling 2017 book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.
Dr. Lee's book has been almost wholly disappeared by our nation's major news orgs. At present, the candidate seems to be getting worse, as Dr. Lee predicted.
The News Hour wasn't willing to take things quite that far last night. Here's the way Nawaz introduced her principal guest:
NAWAZ: Mr. Trump has dismissed any speculation about mental decline, describing his rambling rhetoric as him weaving together different topics and saying his supporters get it.
Let's take a look at some of these questions with an author and clinical psychologist who's raised some of them. That's Dr. Ben Michaelis.
Doctor, welcome to the News Hour. Thanks for joining us.
The discussion continued from there. The clinical psychologist was asked about possible cognitive issues, not about any possible "personality disorders." In theory, there will be plenty of time to talk about that once the again-elected President Trump has dismantled the world.
(You can see the News Hour's transcript, or the videotape of the segment, at the proffered link.
Everyone in the guild agreed—it mustn't be discussed. Last evening, the News Hour took a tiny first step.
Today, he sounded off.
One last point: The New York Times has never managed to find a way to build a recognizable front-page "news hook" around this endless disordered behavior.
In fairness, there has never been any such candidate in modern presidential elections. For that reason, there is no pre-existing journalistic formula for handling disorder on this remarkable scale.
In fairness, it wasn't just the New York Times. More on this journalistic failure to come.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWaPo today:
ReplyDeleteHow Trump talks: Abrupt shifts, profane insults, confusing sentences
The wisdom of Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other."
ReplyDeleteTrump "threatened to investigate, prosecute, jail or otherwise punish" opponents. Investigation is not threat. It's appropriate when there is possible wrongdoing.
He already seems to know what the result of those "appropriate" investigations will be:
DeleteWHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences
Quaker -- Trump speaks so loosely that it's impossible to know what he meant. But, if we take his actual words, he didn't say he'd punish all his opponents. Only those who "cheated". Also, he said "to the full extent of the law, so he's only talking about the subset of opponents who broke the law.
DeleteNone of the people he's threatening have cheated or have been shown to have broken the law, you dumb fuck. So you're just going to keep on defending this fucking lunatic, no matter how obviously unfit he is?
DeleteLEILA FADEL, HOST: With just two weeks until Election Day, former President Donald Trump has been escalating his attacks on his political rivals and what he calls, quote, "the enemy within," unquote.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Now an NPR investigation has found that Trump has made more than a hundred threats to investigate, prosecute, jail or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, including private citizens.
FADEL: NPR's investigative correspondent, Tom Dreisbach, has been looking into this. Good morning.
TOM DREISBACH, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: So we know former President Trump has talked about, quote, "locking people up" for a long time. What's new about what you found here?
DREISBACH: Right. And, you know, Trump's allies say, come on. This is just campaign rhetoric. The media is overhyping this. So we wanted to find out - just how often does Trump do this? And we looked at rally speeches, interviews, social media posts just since 2022, when he was preparing for this campaign. And that's how we found more than 100 examples.
FADEL: More than a hundred examples - who exactly is he targeting?
DREISBACH: Well, at the top of the list are his political opponents. He says if he wins, on Day 1, he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and Biden's family. He says Vice President Kamala Harris should be prosecuted. He's reposted calls for former President Barack Obama, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney to face military tribunals. And then he's also pushed for prosecutions and arrests of people involved in the criminal and civil cases against him - prosecutors, judges, even a courthouse staffer. And in one case, he floated the idea of prosecuting a member of the Georgia grand jury that indicted him for election interference.
FADEL: OK, so this goes well beyond just politicians, including private citizens, like this juror you just described, but also journalists. What has Trump said about them?
DREISBACH: Well, he said journalists who refuse to give up their sources should go to jail. He says CBS and NBC should be investigated and lose their broadcast licenses because he didn't like their news coverage. He's also attacked people who criticize or protest the Supreme Court. This is from a rally this September.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: These people should be put in jail. The way they talk about our judges and our justices, trying to get them to sway their vote.
FADEL: I mean, what you're describing, Tom, is pretty frightening. And all of this obviously raises the question - could former President Trump actually do this?
DREISBACH: Well, there's been a norm that's generally accepted for decades that the White House does not direct investigations by the Justice Department, but it is not the law. And at the end of the day, the president does control the Justice Department. Of course, there are guardrails. Judges can refuse to sign warrants. They can dismiss charges. But investigations alone, legal experts told me, can be terrifying - cost a ton of money in legal bills. And there's this concern that just the threat of a prosecution can make someone say, if opposing the president gets me investigated, is it really worth the risk?
DeleteFADEL: So a chilling effect there. What does your reporting tell you about whether Trump would actually take action on these threats?
DREISBACH: Yeah, an analysis from an NYU law professor found a dozen cases from Trump's first term where he pressured the Justice Department to investigate, and they did follow through. And I also talked to multiple people who said they're preparing for the worst case in case Trump wins. Stephanie Grisham was a press secretary in Trump's White House, but she now says he's unfit for office.
STEPHANIE GRISHAM: I just know that once he's in office, with no reason to worry about reelection and only the most fervent, loyal people surrounding him, that he will absolutely make sure his enemies pay for what he perceives to be their crimes.
DREISBACH: And Grisham told me she's already saving money, getting ducks in a row in case she's subjected to, say, an investigation or IRS audit. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Republican Party responded to our reporting by saying that Harris is the threat to democracy.
Trump said that if Jesus were the vote counter, he would have won CA in 2020. That means that he thinks 5 million people (the margin Trump lost the state by to Biden) cheated. Is that a subset? Trump's obvious reasoning is that if voters hadn't cheated, he would have won, therefore they must have cheated because he lost the state.
Delete"Investigation is not threat. It's appropriate when there is possible wrongdoing."
DeleteWhat is this supposed to mean? That only guilty people are investigated? That defending yourself against a DOJ investigation is a piece of cake?
Is there a choherent thought buried in here somewhere?
Investigation is a way to harrass a political opponent, as occurred with the many Benghazi investigations of Hillary Clinton, which never found any wrongdoing but took up a lot of time and money and resulted in unfair negative headlines in the news.
DeleteInvestigation is a way to harass a political opponent, as occurred with the Russia/Trump collusion investigations which never found any wrongdoing but took up a gigantic amount of time and money and resulted in years of toweringly unfair and false negative headlines in the news.
DeleteRe. his threat of investigations - Trump is definitely going to win the election. It's just by how much. I hope people are ready for it.
" ... it wasn't just the New York Times."
ReplyDeleteThen there's the LA Times and the Washington Post and their lack of intestinal fortitude.
Regardless of whether there is something wrong with Trump, there is something wrong with Trump supporters and with the many people besides the press who do not stand up and oppose Trump when he engages in his crimes and scams.
ReplyDeleteSomerby has never raised the issue of what is wrong with Trump supporters. He wants to limit discussion to the news media that he dislikes, that he seems to have a preexisting beef with. Somerby has never said "What's wrong with Mitch McConnell?" Somerby has never said "What's wrong with Mike Johnson?" Somerby has never said "What's wrong with Melania Trump or Ivanka or Jared or Don Jr. or Eric or Tiffany?" Somerby has never said what is wrong with all those people who stormed the Capitol and the ones who voted for Trump in 2020 (never mind 2016, when they might have been confused).
Somerby has asked why psychologists and psychiatrists do not violate their own ethical standards to remotely diagnose Trump (there is no evidence Somerby listened to the answer), but Somerby has never asked why Trump's cabinet did not use Amendment 25 or why none of Trump's closest advisors and staff have not insisted that he release his health records.
Somerby does not seem serious about his wailing about Trump's obvious deficiencies when he has never taken this past the stage where he gets to call Morning Joe names. He asks what's wrong with Gutfeld that he tells crude jokes, but he has never asked what is wrong with Gutfeld that he supports Trump.
I want to know why not. I want to know why Somerby, who is willing to chastise liberals all day long, has never had the nerve to chastise all those millions of Trump supporters, who all clearly know that Trump is not right but support him anyway.
Liz Cheney and various other Republicans have had the courage to take that step. Somerby has never applauded them or even noticed their efforts. Some of them have destroyed their political careers in order to oppose Trump. That is political and person courage. Somerby has never asked why so few others have cared enough about our country to sacrifice to keep us safe from a monster like Trump. Why not? Does Somerby lack the political courage to ask these obvious questions? Apparently so.
Somerby is asking the wrong question. I agree with Jeff Teidrich:
ReplyDeleteTucker Carlson said: “there has to be a point at which dad comes home. dad comes home and he’s pissed. he’s not vengeful, he loves his children. disobedient as they may be, he loves them … and when dad gets home, you know what he says? you’ve been a bad girl. you’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. and no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. no, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. it’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. and you earned this. you’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”
that was Tuckums, two nights ago at a hate-rally in Duluth, Georgia, warming up the crowd for Donny Convict.
now, I can hear you saying, please, Uncle Jeff — tell us what happened next. please tell us that the crowd sat in confused silence. that you could hear a pin drop, and then a voice rang out as clear as a bell:
“what the fuck is wrong with you?”
sorry, no. that ain’t how that shit went down. Donny’s deranged cultists gobbled it up.
Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don.” Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.
no one could have predicted that the cultists who prance about in adult diapers — worn outside their clothing — would be totally up for a vigorous spanking from Dear Leader.
and they wonder why we call them weird as fuck.
what the hell did these people’s parents do to them?"
That is the question Somerby should be asking about Trump's followers. Because if Trump has a heinous personality disorder, so do the Republicans who support him. But Somerby won't ever say that. Why? It is as obvious as Trump's own pathology.
Is Somerby wrong with Somerby if he ignores and NEVER discusses the sexual assault accusations against Trump?
ReplyDeleteNoah Berlatsky at Public Notice says:
"Yet another woman has accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her. On a Zoom call for Survivors for Kamala, former model Stacey Williams, 56, said that Trump groped her at a party while billionaire sex trafficker and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein stood by.
Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least eighteen women. Last year a jury found him liable for the sexual assault of writer E. Jean Carroll. The judge in the case characterized the the assault as a rape.
Everybody who wants to know, then, already knows that Trump has a history of sexually harassing and abusing women. Nonetheless, polls show him with about a 50 percent chance of winning the election.
It’s easy to be cynical about the possible effect of new accusations. Trump’s fans don’t care that he’s an abuser. If new revelations were going to affect the election, they would have already done so, the argument goes. Nothing matters.
The problem with the immediate assertion that something won’t matter, though, is that it can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It gives the media an excuse to dismiss and ignore Trump’s scandals and Trump’s vileness. And in this case, it’s also insulting to survivors, who put themselves at substantial risk when they come forward to defy one of the most powerful men in the world.
Rather than insisting preemptively that testimony about Trump’s unfitness doesn’t matter, we need to take it seriously — and insist that the media and voters take it seriously too."
I agree with Berlatsky that we need to keep reminding the public about these accusations, whether the press seems uninterested or not. That includes Somerby, who tends to blame sexual assault on the victim (judging by his discussion of Chanel Miller's rape case). There are so many women with similar assault complaints that it is hard to believe they all lack substance, yet this election has pretended they don't exist. Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were both convicted of sex trafficking. Trump is an adjudged sexual abuser who libeled his victim, E.Jean Carroll. The many other women have not had a day in court (besides Stormy Daniels). Why won't Somerby and the press take seriously these accusations which show that Trump (in his own words on the Pussy tape) has no respect for women, who are 50% of a president's constituents. Trump is unfit because of his lack of character, even if he is now 78 and too old to abuse anyone convincingly. He doesn't deserve to run, much less win.
Why doesn't Somerby say any of this?
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/stacey-williams-trump-epstein-allegation
Typo correction: Is something wrong with Somerby, in the first sentence.
DeleteFrom Andy Borowitz (spoiler: humor)
ReplyDelete"PITTSBURGH (The Borowitz Report)—Deepening his engagement with American democracy, on Friday the Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered a million dollars to anyone willing to forfeit their human rights.
“Giving up your rights is like riding in a driverless car,” he told a Republican rally audience. “Before you know it, you won’t miss having any control.”
“Just sign over your voting, civil, and reproductive rights and the check is yours!” he yelled.
Sweetening the deal, Musk also offered a million dollars to anyone who can stand hearing him talk for four minutes."
The political bias and dishonest of the left is something to behold. When Musk was the big electric car maven and voted Democrat, he was a hero. Now that he's supporting Trump he's the devil. He deserves to be mocked by Borowitz. His companies are being investigated by various federal agencies.
DeleteMusk was never a hero to liberals, David. That’s just your fantasy. But he’s out there every day insulting liberals, probably heretofore the main consumers of his cars. Smart.
Delete7:40,
DeleteYou really need a cognitive checkup. Sure, a lot of people on the left are biased against Trump and his supporters. Okay, great point.
But there's nothing remotely dishonest in the scenario you sketched out. Are you okay?