The big question facing the ink-stained wretches of the press is, can they find enough hours in the day to keep up with the tsunami of Defendant Trump’s legal travails? Taegan Goddard, founder, editor, and publisher of the smart and essential newsletter, Political Wire, recently suspended indefinitely a bonus paid subscriber only newsletter called Politics Extra. His regular newsletter, posted periodically throughout the day, apparently became so stuffed with news about Defendant Trump that he couldn’t keep up with his bonus reports, usually published around 6 p.m.
Having correctly intuited Mr. T.'s column for today, I decided my response should come from my Ditty Machine (which has nothing to do with AI, may I add.) The reason for this is I have spilled all my agita in prose so I have to move on to poesie.
Like a malignant Alice in Wonderland
Comes now a man who was Potus ...
Perhaps there is something poisonous loose ...
I speak of a compromised Scotus
He rails at a rally, or is it Fox News?
That his troubles are such "a disgrace"
He has the right word, but it's turned on its head,
His people most likely harbor deep and enduring resentments like he does. He’s their spokesman. I don’t understand his utter recklessness. He will be a bankrupt convict leaving his wives and children with bitter dregs of his disgrace.
I know this is old news but. I laughed out loud, when I read his attorneys want to delay the MAL case, wait for it. Because they have so many classified documents to go through.
(in a hushed whisper: not classified docs, total # of documents. Defense doesn't have all classified/natdef doc srelated to Indictment at this time due to lacking proper security clearence level)
Attack type War crime, mass murder, assassination, execution
Deaths 11
Perpetrators Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on instructions from the Ural Regional Soviet[a]
Clockwise from top: the Romanov family, Ivan Kharitonov, Alexei Trupp, Anna Demidova, and Eugene Botkin
The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death[2][3] by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov.[4] The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, mutilated with grenades to prevent identification, and buried.[3][5] *****en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Romanov_family#:~:text=The%20Russian%20Imperial%20Romanov%20family,Yekaterinburg%20on%20the%20night%20of *****
"The Way of the Romanovs, sure - deposed from power, indubitably condign retribution.
Making any of them martyrs in some crackpot lust for vengeance, "you have GOT to be kidding," to quote John MacEnroe!
Self-destructive, arguably just an act of barbarism that misses the entire point of having a (relatively) civilized justice system, please, I implore ya Judith, just cease and desist.
It's embarrassing to see people who really should know better go down that route.
Sorry, not sorry. Thomas Jefferson said that the tree of liberty occasionally needs to be refreshed with the blood of "patriots and tyrants." In this case a whole family of "tyrants"--evil people that the world would be better off without. It won't happen of course, but that won't keep me from wishing it would!
Jefferson (1) lived in a very different era, and (2) a lengthy prison sentence NOT in a "country club" type of setting, would likely NOW satisfy Jefferson's theory, as a more evolved form of having the tyrant shed blood for his monumental affronts to the rule of law, democratic norms, basic human decency - that's the really really short list.
Jeez Judith I even sympathize with the wish to get revenge on this ^%$#@!, but I think it is best "sublimated" for a bunch of reasons and considerations, no way we want Vladonald Trumpski seen as a "martyr." Just disgraced, ruined, imprisoned, that's plenty.
Jeez LOOEEZ, who has seriously suggested that? Anyone who thinks along those lines is evidently prone to a hyperbolic level of nearly paranoid alienation and wildly absurd skepticism about the US legal system, it is riddled with problems, but really...I can only shake my head and go on with my plan to watch Crimes and Misdemeanors* again - for maybe the seventh time, but over a span of 35 years, since the film was released in the late 1980s. btw Katy, if you have not seen that film, you have no idea how brilliant it is, be sure to watch if Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. streams it - as intense as it gets.
*
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 American existential comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars alongside Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, and Joanna Gleason.
The film was met with critical acclaim, receiving three Academy Award nominations: Allen, for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and Landau, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Several publications have ranked Crimes and Misdemeanors as one of Allen's greatest films.
Arthritis has slowed my typing down to 25 words per minute (once upon a time 45-50 wpm), so I'm happy to be retired from the journalism racket because 25 wpm clearly is not fast enough to keep up with breaking Trumpian developments
With all due respect to your overworked digits I personally can't wait till you start writing nonstop about the 3rd (and hopefully final) installment in this national trauma-drama called "The Inmate".
Lucian, it is all so exhausting. Can we remember a time when the name "Trump" wasn't constantly in our ears and before our eyes? It is practically 365/24/7. And we do appreciate your reportage and analysis. But please, someone, make it all stop. The last day on which we ever read or hear the name "Trump" cannot come soon enough.
To the members of his cult, it is NOT "petulant whining." It's sincere cry from the wounded heart of the man they adore and believe can do no wrong. LET'S NOT FORGET THAT THEY LIVE IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT REALITY! A world where t-Rump can compare his troubles to those of Jesus, and not be laughed (or thrown) off the stage.
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
What blows my mind is NOT Donald Trump. He is just a supremely spoiled sadistic narcissist crude sociopath with a damaged childhood and one of many who walk this earth. Nothing special about him other than falling into this because he was a rich boy and a bully.
Americans were attracted to his bullyism and prescriptive demagogue tactics. They could relate to him and regard his "success" and riches as a product of the American dream. And of course, Trump appealed to those who have fear and/or hate in the hearts. Especially those prone to American exceptionalism. Trump, the dopey bully fell into the Presidency. It surprised the shit even out of him.
What blows my mind is all the folks who surrounded him who, not only let it happen, but began to use it for their ends. The lies, hypocrisy, anti-American values, and dishonor is just stunning and I hope justice finds its way to the right people. McCarthy and his convenient logic, nasty ego, and constant sniping at our institutions for political purposes is revolting. And one can tell, he knows better. But he is too smug to care.
Alot of people, including Trump need serious time in jail so that this never happens again. If we just house arrest Trump in his plush mansion (because come on, he was our Pwesident and we must pway nice) then Trump number 2, one who is way more savvy, will come. They are already lining up. The one weakness in a democracy is anyone can be voted in. And with social media, and now AI, we are almost doomed to fall to bad actors.
For America to survive we need consequences now and legislation protecting democracy that closes the loopholes that previously relied on truth, dignity, honor, and tradition. Time to legislate the requirement of truth. Hapless Trump rendered tradition worthless. And anyone who runs for President needs a background & mental stability check. If vetting a candidate is done smart, and has strong guardrails, I think we can avoid the slippery slope of politicizing the process and America will survive.
I would dare say that Americans of a certain class are those who love and admire Trump. The upper classes and really truly rich think of him as a parvenu and bounder with no class and few social graces.
Remember, for all of his money, he's never been invited to any of the 'big' social events, and his wife has never graced the cover of Town and Country, which is THE magazine of the upper classes.
As someone who knew Trump once said, "He's a clown living on credit" which tells you all you need to know of their mindset of him.
They're probably cheering Jack Smith on with a vengeance..or as one of the most telling comments I've heard said, "Not of our class, dear". Which means he's never been accepted as a rich man. Just a clown living on credit.
You keep saying that, Judith, for months on end the same claim, it's as if you have occult powers allowing you to peer into the future, yet EVERYTHING going on is leading to EXACTLY the opposite result for Donald J. Trump AND a bunch of his co-conspirators and enablers: a prison sentence.
Just cease and desist, unless you can bolster the fortune-telling act with relevant, cogent, credible, legally ground reasoning, arguments and considerations showing WHY Trump would dance between the raindrops, when it is clearly developing into a deluge. thanks in advance, I welcome correction in my views, if you have any to offer.
I happen to know a little about federal law and procedure, (due to an event that I was part of but not the defendant) and he's truly, absolutely fucked.
Jack Smith has him dead to rights and Trump is panicked now because this will be the 2nd federal indictment and the 3rd of a set of 4 (or more, I'm not sure if there will be any more..) indictments.
Nobody can escape this kind of prosecution.
The saying is "don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
He's gonna do it.
I guarantee that. I pray for it. I think it is coming-the day Donald Trump is convicted of federal crimes and that there is nobody and nothing he can do to stop it.
Ok of course, what I am vigorously contesting with anyone - happens to be Judith T, but I care absolutely nothing at all who it is, this is not personal, I can certainly see damn well why people are frustrated enough by Trump's entire career of crime and grifting to make wild claims, I deeply sympathize with the motivation, but simply reserve the right to argue (vigorously, this issue matters so no tepid wishy-washy responses make sense) they're mistaken, so anyone who "guarantees" he won't face prison and serve time (barring his own SUCCESSFUL flight to who knows where, as being caught in unsuccessful escape GUARANTEES he will be in the slammer do not pass go do not collect $200 case closed!) can expect a rhetorically forceful demand for MORE FACTS to back up the attempt to peer into the future like Mystic Meg or some incompetent astrologer.
COMPETENT astrologers just use astrology as a means of offering reasonably sound advice about life's problems, they NEVER make inane claims about events or acts as if those are "compelled by the stars." It's just a system of psychology and a tool for meditation, like tarot, runes, etc.
Shee-rah, come on, it's not the INVASION OF NORMANDY*, is it? The Treasury vets their hires, they will find some who, like Philip Marlowe** "don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble."
Likely they'll expect to be rotated out regularly to less psychologically wearing posts!
Forgive my sniping, please, I just watched The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan within hours of one another, and somehow or other many of life's problems, whether mine or on a grander scale, seem absurdly trivial in comparison...
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune). A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.
The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion in 1944 was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, and General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all the land forces involved in the invasion. The coast of Normandy of northwestern France was chosen as the site of the invasion, with the Americans assigned to land at sectors codenamed Utah and Omaha, the British at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians at Juno. To meet the conditions expected on the Normandy beachhead, special technology was developed, including two artificial ports called Mulberry harbours and an array of specialised tanks nicknamed Hobart's Funnies. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted Operation Bodyguard, a substantial military deception that used electronic and visual misinformation to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in charge of developing fortifications all along Hitler's proclaimed Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an invasion of France.
The Allies failed to accomplish their objectives for the first day, but gained a tenuous foothold that they gradually expanded when they captured the port at Cherbourg on 26 June and the city of Caen on 21 July. A failed counterattack by German forces in response to Allied advances on 7 August left 50,000 soldiers of the German 7th Army trapped in the Falaise pocket by 19 August. The Allies launched a second invasion from the Mediterranean Sea of southern France (code-named Operation Dragoon) on 15 August, and the Liberation of Paris followed on 25 August. German forces retreated east across the Seine on 30 August 1944, marking the close of Operation Overlord. ****
Philip Marlowe (/ˈmɑːrloʊ/) is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in Black Mask magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op and Sam Spade first appeared. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep, published in 1939. Chandler's early short stories, published in pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective, featured similar characters with names like "Carmady" and "John Dalmas", starting in 1933.
Some of those short stories were later combined and expanded into novels featuring Marlowe, a process Chandler called "cannibalizing", which is more commonly known in publishing as a fix-up. When the original stories were republished years later in the short-story collection The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler did not change the names of the protagonists to Philip Marlowe. His first two stories, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" and "Smart-Aleck Kill" (with a detective named Mallory), were never altered in print but did join the others as Marlowe cases for the television series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye.
Underneath the wisecracking, hard-drinking, tough private eye, Marlowe is quietly contemplative, philosophical and enjoys chess and poetry. While he is not afraid to risk physical harm, he does not dish out violence merely to settle scores. Morally upright, he is not fooled by the genre's usual femmes fatales, such as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Chandler's treatment of the detective novel exhibits an effort to develop the form. His first full-length book, The Big Sleep, was published when Chandler was 51; his last, Playback, was published when he was 70. He wrote seven novels in the last two decades of his life. An eighth, Poodle Springs, was completed posthumously by Robert B. Parker and published years later. *****
No occult powers. I'll believe it when I see him in handcuffs in an orange jumpsuit. If that really happens, I will be more than happy to admit I've been wrong, but not before.
But that's incoherent, make up your mind! You are taking this tone that it is absolutely guaranteed Il Trumpolini will not be sentenced AND SERVE TIME, and I want REASONS why and how Trump is going to avoid (1) conviction with a sentence IN PRISON - maybe "only" 30 years, he'll get out when he is only 99 years old, assuming he is sent up the river in 2025, when he will be 79, and gets ten years off for good behavior, he should thank his lucky stars we are a merciful, forgiving people, damn it! - (2) which survives appeals, which should be fairly easy (to still have a 30 year sentence cobbled together, even when served concurrently) and 3) does not "take the honorable way out," as in Murder Must Advertise, or Japanese seppuku / hara-kari - of course he knows nothing of Bushido, the warrior's code, as Colonel Saito from The Bridge on the River Kwai would point out , but you get the point, maybe he swallows pills, I don't know, or 4) Successfully escapes - has to be successful, getting caught guarantees the slammer, the crossbar motel, Sing Sing, stir - notice Trump could not possibly "go stir crazy," so that's another silver lining for him, he won't be any worse off in that sense!
IF #3 or #4 take place, it's a standoff, neither of us turns out to be correct.
I hear you and sincerely hope he does time. I'm just afraid that certain judges or others are afraid to set a precedent involving a "president" going to prison for his crimes. Some societies just handle it directly like Italy did after WW11.
I'm appalled but now it's on to Crimes and Misdemeanors, your weird invocation of the gory, grisly, viciously sadistic and barbaric extrajudicial murder of Il Duce and Signorina Clara Pettaci' to the contrary notwithstanding, adding only that "hard cases make bad law."
I hear ya sister! Hard not to feel jaded. But, I do think, if convicted, Trump will go to jail. There is no way out. Except a Presidential pardon. And I think, if Trump is convicted, the crimes are SO bad that, should Biden win, he can't pardon him. The Biden supporters would go berserk. It would be horrible politics. But all bets are off when the Republicans take the White House whether 2024 or down the road. Now, as to prison? I am sure Trump will end up in prison Riviera. Golf, pickle ball, and everything. Much more than middle America can afford to enjoy being free.
Yes, We all lament. But I am afraid that is the reality. Gormet food and entertainment to boot. His mates will be cut of the same cloth. Mostly wealthy and/or connected.
It would send a REALLY strong message to anyone contemplating the same if Trump was in hard prison and diving into madness. I mean we are talking an entire nation here versus one man. Hey Bernie Madoff lived in a 5' x 8' cell. He was let out 2 hrs a day. Really kind of cruel. Prison should be about recovering and reassimilation. Not penning them like animals. But that is a subject for another day.
In astronomic terms, this is like watching an aging star that has used up all of its internal fuel expanding, and then going supernova in a titanic explosion. Bit by bit, Donald Trump's financial empire is being sucked into the vortex of his personal troubles. He's a lousy businessman whose business model was fueled by a bloated public image, and a mountain of debt. Whoever goes into business with Donald Trump loses their shirt. This was a career built on a glittering celebrity, and fueled by other people's money. It looks to be that that is about to end in a spectacular explosion. I can't feel sorry for anyone who does business with Trump, because they are as greedy and stupid as he is.
Just as, it is said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, so it is true that real estate is the last refuge of people who are too stupid or too unimaginative to invest on their own and want to get rich quickly, and without having to work too hard at it. The whole mantra of real estate investment is, and has always been, that the value of real estate as collateral for a loan will always exceed the amount of debt that is incurred in developing that property. Within the past six months or so, economic historian Adam Tooze, in his newsletter, wrote about residential apartment buildings in China as the only place to park money there, as most industrial development had dried up as viable investments. The result was a huge Ponzi scheme in which money supposedly paid out by investors in residential apartments for newly designed projects, was currently being used to bring older projects to completion. Here in the United States we have the situation where money paid out to develop central business district office buildings cannot be recouped. The expectation was that ever higher rents would be able to pay down the debt; and in property after property, the door keys to those properties are being turned over to third parties holding security interests in them, or going under the hammer in bankruptcy liquidation sales. Real estate development has frequently been targeted by foreign investors who have too much cash on hand and need to park it somewhere safe. We saw the same phenomenon occur in the run-up to the 2008 debacle triggered by subprime mortgages. Now we see something similar happening in commercial real estate development where hyperbolic expectations of return on investment were largely fueled by FOMO (Fear of Missing out), getting in now before others beat us to the punch. The problem is exacerbated because Donald Trump is not really a professional property developer with sufficient capital to be able to fund the necessary land-use planning, econometric surveying, site engineering, and marketing expertise that legitimate development companies are able to field in order to afford their development projects a reasonable assurance that they will succeed. It is a business of many little bets, where most of them have to come right side up if the overall project is going to succeed.
By contrast, Donald Trump's checkered career as a property developer was inevitably tied to celebrity, glitz, sleaze, and crime. One need only look at his career as a pitchman for resort and entertainment properties in Atlantic City and elsewhere. Years ago it was the gaming industry in Atlantic City; now it is glitzy golf resort properties at Mar-a-Lago, Doral, Jupiter, and elsewhere in Florida, or cutting deals with the sovereign wealth of the Saud family in the Arabian Peninsula. If one takes as axiomatic that getting wealthy is largely a function of a run of good luck for many individuals, the luck runs out when individuals like Donald Trump go from pitchman to development orchestrator and developer. Donald Trump is a master salesman whose stock in trade is his dreams. He is a pitchman who cannot bear the thought of being honest with himself, and anyone else, about how much money he has at risk, and how few guarantees he has that his project will end right side up. His entire lifetime has been spent in creating and peddling illusions. Legitimate developers won't come within a country mile of him. He consumes capital as fast as he can fleece it from his fraud victims. He is indeed like that giant star that consumes himself into oblivion.
Goldman Sachs' troubles are front-page news because the bottom has fallen out of the office real estate market. The luxury tower built for the world's elite still sits half empty in Michael Bloomberg's pet NYC project, upscale Hudson Yards. How can trump urban real estate not be toast?
Yes, indeed. And these are the people with savvy and foresight. Now imagine Donald Trump latching onto the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, parasite like. It is easy to conjure up a picture of Donald Trump soliciting funds from members of the Saudi royal family ostensibly to fund their joint partnership, and Donald Trump secretly diverting much of that money into supporting his failing real estate holdings. Of course Trump is going to cook the books to make it seem that the joint venture is turning a tidy profit; but inevitably, Trump will always be coming back to him looking for more money to keep his real estate empire afloat. Trump's attitude has to be that he is somehow 'entitled' to the Saudi largesse, because they have it, and he needs it for his own purposes. Trump will have his people do some creative accounting that will include all sorts of vague and undocumented operating expenses, when realistically, the joint venture's greatest operating expense is Donald J. Trump himself.
If you're looking for poetic analogues, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas offers a more apt one in describing Donald Trump: "Do not go gentle into that good night quietly… "(But rather)… rage, rage against the dying light". That is Donald Trump, fighting and raging until the bitter end.
The villain of the story, “Bob Alexander”, played by Frank Langella, initially believes that President Dave Mitchell’s speech to Congress confessing to a series of crimes is the final nail in the coffin for Mitchell, fulfilling Langella/ Alexander’s plot to install himself as President.
At first, Alexander is surrounded by enthusiastic supporters as he sits in his chair watching the speech. But when President Mitchell elaborates that it was Alexander who committed the crimes and orchestrated the entire plot, the camera cuts back to Alexander sitting alone, having been instantly abandoned by all of his fair-weather-friend supporters.
It’s a perfect illustration of the “rats fleeing the sinking ship“ scenario, which we’re now seeing unfolding in real time with regard to The Vile One, my favorite moniker for Defendant Trump.
It's so much fun reading Lucian's columns dealing with Defendant Dumpster. When one looks at the bizarre, if not deranged, writings coming from the Dumpster, it seems clear that he's under acute stress, and for good reason. Who wouldn't be with so many state & federal cases pending? I'm still hoping the stress builds to a breaking point and his heart (or what passes for a heart) finally just gives up and quits.
I was the groom's brother's girlfriend at a New Hampshire wedding a year or two after the resignation, so didn't really know any of the principals. I made a casual nasty crack about Tricky Dick in a mixed group … whammo! I was lucky to get out alive. The bride's mother, it turned out, was a NH (!) Republican national committeewoman—and still seething.
That's funny, Thomas! I'll bet you did know her. I forget the family name; the daughter was Candy—a poet.The Union-Leader? Wasn't that the constantly quoted placeholder for today's RW press?
The difference being once Nixon waved buh-bye Rs most Rs publicly disavowed Nixon while in private plotted revenge to seek impeach any D-Pres who colored outside the lines. Clinton was their revenge.
Juxtapose the polar opposite with Trump. Most Rs publicly support him while privately want Trump gone by any means. Add to that publicly calling for P-Biden and other Ad, officals to be impeached, criminally investigated, or to resign.
I never much cared for the name Donald but I sure have taken a liking to his new name, Defendant! Looking on the bright side at least he doesn’t have to update all his monograms.
Having correctly intuited Mr. T.'s column for today, I decided my response should come from my Ditty Machine (which has nothing to do with AI, may I add.) The reason for this is I have spilled all my agita in prose so I have to move on to poesie.
Like a malignant Alice in Wonderland
Comes now a man who was Potus ...
Perhaps there is something poisonous loose ...
I speak of a compromised Scotus
He rails at a rally, or is it Fox News?
That his troubles are such "a disgrace"
He has the right word, but it's turned on its head,
"Projection" he's come to embrace.
One wonders how is it that all of his crimes
Are dismissed as just "weaponization"
By millions of cranks who have taken his side
But instead should seek God's expiation.
more pleez
Love it!
Margo Howard, you should do this more often!
What fun!
Thanks Margo!
His people most likely harbor deep and enduring resentments like he does. He’s their spokesman. I don’t understand his utter recklessness. He will be a bankrupt convict leaving his wives and children with bitter dregs of his disgrace.
Love « the Defendant « « , sequel to « the Apprentice »= PERFECT!
And the hits just keep on coming.
I know this is old news but. I laughed out loud, when I read his attorneys want to delay the MAL case, wait for it. Because they have so many classified documents to go through.
I thought that they were declassified???
(in a hushed whisper: not classified docs, total # of documents. Defense doesn't have all classified/natdef doc srelated to Indictment at this time due to lacking proper security clearence level)
LOL
Good one!
Every day is like Christmas!
I really hope Ivanka, Jared, and Beavis and Butthead are indicted soon, as well.
As I've said i the past, that whole clan needs to go the way of the Romanovs!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Murder of the Romanov family
Part of the Red Terror during the Russian Civil War
Location Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, Russian SFSR
Date 16–17 July 1918
Target Romanov family
Attack type War crime, mass murder, assassination, execution
Deaths 11
Perpetrators Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on instructions from the Ural Regional Soviet[a]
Clockwise from top: the Romanov family, Ivan Kharitonov, Alexei Trupp, Anna Demidova, and Eugene Botkin
The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death[2][3] by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov.[4] The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, mutilated with grenades to prevent identification, and buried.[3][5] *****en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Romanov_family#:~:text=The%20Russian%20Imperial%20Romanov%20family,Yekaterinburg%20on%20the%20night%20of *****
"The Way of the Romanovs, sure - deposed from power, indubitably condign retribution.
Making any of them martyrs in some crackpot lust for vengeance, "you have GOT to be kidding," to quote John MacEnroe!
Self-destructive, arguably just an act of barbarism that misses the entire point of having a (relatively) civilized justice system, please, I implore ya Judith, just cease and desist.
It's embarrassing to see people who really should know better go down that route.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Romanov_family#:~:text=The%20Russian%20Imperial%20Romanov%20family,Yekaterinburg%20on%20the%20night%20of
Sorry, not sorry. Thomas Jefferson said that the tree of liberty occasionally needs to be refreshed with the blood of "patriots and tyrants." In this case a whole family of "tyrants"--evil people that the world would be better off without. It won't happen of course, but that won't keep me from wishing it would!
Jefferson (1) lived in a very different era, and (2) a lengthy prison sentence NOT in a "country club" type of setting, would likely NOW satisfy Jefferson's theory, as a more evolved form of having the tyrant shed blood for his monumental affronts to the rule of law, democratic norms, basic human decency - that's the really really short list.
Jeez Judith I even sympathize with the wish to get revenge on this ^%$#@!, but I think it is best "sublimated" for a bunch of reasons and considerations, no way we want Vladonald Trumpski seen as a "martyr." Just disgraced, ruined, imprisoned, that's plenty.
Truly imprisoned, not just at Mar-a-Lardo with his servants.
.
Jeez LOOEEZ, who has seriously suggested that? Anyone who thinks along those lines is evidently prone to a hyperbolic level of nearly paranoid alienation and wildly absurd skepticism about the US legal system, it is riddled with problems, but really...I can only shake my head and go on with my plan to watch Crimes and Misdemeanors* again - for maybe the seventh time, but over a span of 35 years, since the film was released in the late 1980s. btw Katy, if you have not seen that film, you have no idea how brilliant it is, be sure to watch if Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. streams it - as intense as it gets.
*
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 American existential comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars alongside Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, and Joanna Gleason.
The film was met with critical acclaim, receiving three Academy Award nominations: Allen, for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and Landau, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Several publications have ranked Crimes and Misdemeanors as one of Allen's greatest films.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_and_Misdemeanors
Arthritis has slowed my typing down to 25 words per minute (once upon a time 45-50 wpm), so I'm happy to be retired from the journalism racket because 25 wpm clearly is not fast enough to keep up with breaking Trumpian developments
lmrao, well-played
With all due respect to your overworked digits I personally can't wait till you start writing nonstop about the 3rd (and hopefully final) installment in this national trauma-drama called "The Inmate".
Good one!
Lucian, it is all so exhausting. Can we remember a time when the name "Trump" wasn't constantly in our ears and before our eyes? It is practically 365/24/7. And we do appreciate your reportage and analysis. But please, someone, make it all stop. The last day on which we ever read or hear the name "Trump" cannot come soon enough.
Hear~Hear
Alas, there are certain negative names that will live in infamy. t-Rump is one of them.
I am afraid you are correct.
Absolutely love hearing about the seditious traitor’s woes. Can’t wait until he is managing them from Florence, CO whilst wearing an orange jumpsuit.
I gotta thank you for Defendant Trump. I use that all the time. Steal from the best, I say.
It seems like even his cultists would get sick of this guy after awhile. Can they really stand another 4 years of his petulant whining? 🙄
To the members of his cult, it is NOT "petulant whining." It's sincere cry from the wounded heart of the man they adore and believe can do no wrong. LET'S NOT FORGET THAT THEY LIVE IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT REALITY! A world where t-Rump can compare his troubles to those of Jesus, and not be laughed (or thrown) off the stage.
I'm hearing Defendant Trump on MSNBC too-—Lawrence?
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood
What blows my mind is NOT Donald Trump. He is just a supremely spoiled sadistic narcissist crude sociopath with a damaged childhood and one of many who walk this earth. Nothing special about him other than falling into this because he was a rich boy and a bully.
Americans were attracted to his bullyism and prescriptive demagogue tactics. They could relate to him and regard his "success" and riches as a product of the American dream. And of course, Trump appealed to those who have fear and/or hate in the hearts. Especially those prone to American exceptionalism. Trump, the dopey bully fell into the Presidency. It surprised the shit even out of him.
What blows my mind is all the folks who surrounded him who, not only let it happen, but began to use it for their ends. The lies, hypocrisy, anti-American values, and dishonor is just stunning and I hope justice finds its way to the right people. McCarthy and his convenient logic, nasty ego, and constant sniping at our institutions for political purposes is revolting. And one can tell, he knows better. But he is too smug to care.
Alot of people, including Trump need serious time in jail so that this never happens again. If we just house arrest Trump in his plush mansion (because come on, he was our Pwesident and we must pway nice) then Trump number 2, one who is way more savvy, will come. They are already lining up. The one weakness in a democracy is anyone can be voted in. And with social media, and now AI, we are almost doomed to fall to bad actors.
For America to survive we need consequences now and legislation protecting democracy that closes the loopholes that previously relied on truth, dignity, honor, and tradition. Time to legislate the requirement of truth. Hapless Trump rendered tradition worthless. And anyone who runs for President needs a background & mental stability check. If vetting a candidate is done smart, and has strong guardrails, I think we can avoid the slippery slope of politicizing the process and America will survive.
I would dare say that Americans of a certain class are those who love and admire Trump. The upper classes and really truly rich think of him as a parvenu and bounder with no class and few social graces.
Remember, for all of his money, he's never been invited to any of the 'big' social events, and his wife has never graced the cover of Town and Country, which is THE magazine of the upper classes.
As someone who knew Trump once said, "He's a clown living on credit" which tells you all you need to know of their mindset of him.
They're probably cheering Jack Smith on with a vengeance..or as one of the most telling comments I've heard said, "Not of our class, dear". Which means he's never been accepted as a rich man. Just a clown living on credit.
All things that SHOULD be done but won't be done. Of COURSE t-Rump should be imprisoned for life. But he will never spend a nanosecond behind bars.
You keep saying that, Judith, for months on end the same claim, it's as if you have occult powers allowing you to peer into the future, yet EVERYTHING going on is leading to EXACTLY the opposite result for Donald J. Trump AND a bunch of his co-conspirators and enablers: a prison sentence.
Just cease and desist, unless you can bolster the fortune-telling act with relevant, cogent, credible, legally ground reasoning, arguments and considerations showing WHY Trump would dance between the raindrops, when it is clearly developing into a deluge. thanks in advance, I welcome correction in my views, if you have any to offer.
I happen to know a little about federal law and procedure, (due to an event that I was part of but not the defendant) and he's truly, absolutely fucked.
Jack Smith has him dead to rights and Trump is panicked now because this will be the 2nd federal indictment and the 3rd of a set of 4 (or more, I'm not sure if there will be any more..) indictments.
Nobody can escape this kind of prosecution.
The saying is "don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
He's gonna do it.
I guarantee that. I pray for it. I think it is coming-the day Donald Trump is convicted of federal crimes and that there is nobody and nothing he can do to stop it.
Ok of course, what I am vigorously contesting with anyone - happens to be Judith T, but I care absolutely nothing at all who it is, this is not personal, I can certainly see damn well why people are frustrated enough by Trump's entire career of crime and grifting to make wild claims, I deeply sympathize with the motivation, but simply reserve the right to argue (vigorously, this issue matters so no tepid wishy-washy responses make sense) they're mistaken, so anyone who "guarantees" he won't face prison and serve time (barring his own SUCCESSFUL flight to who knows where, as being caught in unsuccessful escape GUARANTEES he will be in the slammer do not pass go do not collect $200 case closed!) can expect a rhetorically forceful demand for MORE FACTS to back up the attempt to peer into the future like Mystic Meg or some incompetent astrologer.
COMPETENT astrologers just use astrology as a means of offering reasonably sound advice about life's problems, they NEVER make inane claims about events or acts as if those are "compelled by the stars." It's just a system of psychology and a tool for meditation, like tarot, runes, etc.
Since he’s protected by Secret Service, how would that work if Dumbbell Donny is found guilty and condemned to prison?
Shee-rah, come on, it's not the INVASION OF NORMANDY*, is it? The Treasury vets their hires, they will find some who, like Philip Marlowe** "don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble."
Likely they'll expect to be rotated out regularly to less psychologically wearing posts!
Forgive my sniping, please, I just watched The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan within hours of one another, and somehow or other many of life's problems, whether mine or on a grander scale, seem absurdly trivial in comparison...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune). A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.
The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion in 1944 was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, and General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the 21st Army Group, which comprised all the land forces involved in the invasion. The coast of Normandy of northwestern France was chosen as the site of the invasion, with the Americans assigned to land at sectors codenamed Utah and Omaha, the British at Sword and Gold, and the Canadians at Juno. To meet the conditions expected on the Normandy beachhead, special technology was developed, including two artificial ports called Mulberry harbours and an array of specialised tanks nicknamed Hobart's Funnies. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted Operation Bodyguard, a substantial military deception that used electronic and visual misinformation to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in charge of developing fortifications all along Hitler's proclaimed Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an invasion of France.
The Allies failed to accomplish their objectives for the first day, but gained a tenuous foothold that they gradually expanded when they captured the port at Cherbourg on 26 June and the city of Caen on 21 July. A failed counterattack by German forces in response to Allied advances on 7 August left 50,000 soldiers of the German 7th Army trapped in the Falaise pocket by 19 August. The Allies launched a second invasion from the Mediterranean Sea of southern France (code-named Operation Dragoon) on 15 August, and the Liberation of Paris followed on 25 August. German forces retreated east across the Seine on 30 August 1944, marking the close of Operation Overlord. ****
**en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Marlowe
Philip Marlowe (/ˈmɑːrloʊ/) is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in Black Mask magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op and Sam Spade first appeared. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep, published in 1939. Chandler's early short stories, published in pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective, featured similar characters with names like "Carmady" and "John Dalmas", starting in 1933.
Some of those short stories were later combined and expanded into novels featuring Marlowe, a process Chandler called "cannibalizing", which is more commonly known in publishing as a fix-up. When the original stories were republished years later in the short-story collection The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler did not change the names of the protagonists to Philip Marlowe. His first two stories, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" and "Smart-Aleck Kill" (with a detective named Mallory), were never altered in print but did join the others as Marlowe cases for the television series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye.
Underneath the wisecracking, hard-drinking, tough private eye, Marlowe is quietly contemplative, philosophical and enjoys chess and poetry. While he is not afraid to risk physical harm, he does not dish out violence merely to settle scores. Morally upright, he is not fooled by the genre's usual femmes fatales, such as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Chandler's treatment of the detective novel exhibits an effort to develop the form. His first full-length book, The Big Sleep, was published when Chandler was 51; his last, Playback, was published when he was 70. He wrote seven novels in the last two decades of his life. An eighth, Poodle Springs, was completed posthumously by Robert B. Parker and published years later. *****
Happy International Chess Day!
No occult powers. I'll believe it when I see him in handcuffs in an orange jumpsuit. If that really happens, I will be more than happy to admit I've been wrong, but not before.
But that's incoherent, make up your mind! You are taking this tone that it is absolutely guaranteed Il Trumpolini will not be sentenced AND SERVE TIME, and I want REASONS why and how Trump is going to avoid (1) conviction with a sentence IN PRISON - maybe "only" 30 years, he'll get out when he is only 99 years old, assuming he is sent up the river in 2025, when he will be 79, and gets ten years off for good behavior, he should thank his lucky stars we are a merciful, forgiving people, damn it! - (2) which survives appeals, which should be fairly easy (to still have a 30 year sentence cobbled together, even when served concurrently) and 3) does not "take the honorable way out," as in Murder Must Advertise, or Japanese seppuku / hara-kari - of course he knows nothing of Bushido, the warrior's code, as Colonel Saito from The Bridge on the River Kwai would point out , but you get the point, maybe he swallows pills, I don't know, or 4) Successfully escapes - has to be successful, getting caught guarantees the slammer, the crossbar motel, Sing Sing, stir - notice Trump could not possibly "go stir crazy," so that's another silver lining for him, he won't be any worse off in that sense!
IF #3 or #4 take place, it's a standoff, neither of us turns out to be correct.
I hear you and sincerely hope he does time. I'm just afraid that certain judges or others are afraid to set a precedent involving a "president" going to prison for his crimes. Some societies just handle it directly like Italy did after WW11.
I'm appalled but now it's on to Crimes and Misdemeanors, your weird invocation of the gory, grisly, viciously sadistic and barbaric extrajudicial murder of Il Duce and Signorina Clara Pettaci' to the contrary notwithstanding, adding only that "hard cases make bad law."
I hear ya sister! Hard not to feel jaded. But, I do think, if convicted, Trump will go to jail. There is no way out. Except a Presidential pardon. And I think, if Trump is convicted, the crimes are SO bad that, should Biden win, he can't pardon him. The Biden supporters would go berserk. It would be horrible politics. But all bets are off when the Republicans take the White House whether 2024 or down the road. Now, as to prison? I am sure Trump will end up in prison Riviera. Golf, pickle ball, and everything. Much more than middle America can afford to enjoy being free.
Prison Riviera is no prison at all IMHO! I want that POS to SUFFER! And preferably die in custody.
If he gets convicted in Georga he will be in state prison. Pure Hell is possible! He truly should suffer. Such a gross human being.
Amen, Sistah!
Yes, We all lament. But I am afraid that is the reality. Gormet food and entertainment to boot. His mates will be cut of the same cloth. Mostly wealthy and/or connected.
It would send a REALLY strong message to anyone contemplating the same if Trump was in hard prison and diving into madness. I mean we are talking an entire nation here versus one man. Hey Bernie Madoff lived in a 5' x 8' cell. He was let out 2 hrs a day. Really kind of cruel. Prison should be about recovering and reassimilation. Not penning them like animals. But that is a subject for another day.
In astronomic terms, this is like watching an aging star that has used up all of its internal fuel expanding, and then going supernova in a titanic explosion. Bit by bit, Donald Trump's financial empire is being sucked into the vortex of his personal troubles. He's a lousy businessman whose business model was fueled by a bloated public image, and a mountain of debt. Whoever goes into business with Donald Trump loses their shirt. This was a career built on a glittering celebrity, and fueled by other people's money. It looks to be that that is about to end in a spectacular explosion. I can't feel sorry for anyone who does business with Trump, because they are as greedy and stupid as he is.
Just as, it is said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, so it is true that real estate is the last refuge of people who are too stupid or too unimaginative to invest on their own and want to get rich quickly, and without having to work too hard at it. The whole mantra of real estate investment is, and has always been, that the value of real estate as collateral for a loan will always exceed the amount of debt that is incurred in developing that property. Within the past six months or so, economic historian Adam Tooze, in his newsletter, wrote about residential apartment buildings in China as the only place to park money there, as most industrial development had dried up as viable investments. The result was a huge Ponzi scheme in which money supposedly paid out by investors in residential apartments for newly designed projects, was currently being used to bring older projects to completion. Here in the United States we have the situation where money paid out to develop central business district office buildings cannot be recouped. The expectation was that ever higher rents would be able to pay down the debt; and in property after property, the door keys to those properties are being turned over to third parties holding security interests in them, or going under the hammer in bankruptcy liquidation sales. Real estate development has frequently been targeted by foreign investors who have too much cash on hand and need to park it somewhere safe. We saw the same phenomenon occur in the run-up to the 2008 debacle triggered by subprime mortgages. Now we see something similar happening in commercial real estate development where hyperbolic expectations of return on investment were largely fueled by FOMO (Fear of Missing out), getting in now before others beat us to the punch. The problem is exacerbated because Donald Trump is not really a professional property developer with sufficient capital to be able to fund the necessary land-use planning, econometric surveying, site engineering, and marketing expertise that legitimate development companies are able to field in order to afford their development projects a reasonable assurance that they will succeed. It is a business of many little bets, where most of them have to come right side up if the overall project is going to succeed.
By contrast, Donald Trump's checkered career as a property developer was inevitably tied to celebrity, glitz, sleaze, and crime. One need only look at his career as a pitchman for resort and entertainment properties in Atlantic City and elsewhere. Years ago it was the gaming industry in Atlantic City; now it is glitzy golf resort properties at Mar-a-Lago, Doral, Jupiter, and elsewhere in Florida, or cutting deals with the sovereign wealth of the Saud family in the Arabian Peninsula. If one takes as axiomatic that getting wealthy is largely a function of a run of good luck for many individuals, the luck runs out when individuals like Donald Trump go from pitchman to development orchestrator and developer. Donald Trump is a master salesman whose stock in trade is his dreams. He is a pitchman who cannot bear the thought of being honest with himself, and anyone else, about how much money he has at risk, and how few guarantees he has that his project will end right side up. His entire lifetime has been spent in creating and peddling illusions. Legitimate developers won't come within a country mile of him. He consumes capital as fast as he can fleece it from his fraud victims. He is indeed like that giant star that consumes himself into oblivion.
Goldman Sachs' troubles are front-page news because the bottom has fallen out of the office real estate market. The luxury tower built for the world's elite still sits half empty in Michael Bloomberg's pet NYC project, upscale Hudson Yards. How can trump urban real estate not be toast?
Yes, indeed. And these are the people with savvy and foresight. Now imagine Donald Trump latching onto the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, parasite like. It is easy to conjure up a picture of Donald Trump soliciting funds from members of the Saudi royal family ostensibly to fund their joint partnership, and Donald Trump secretly diverting much of that money into supporting his failing real estate holdings. Of course Trump is going to cook the books to make it seem that the joint venture is turning a tidy profit; but inevitably, Trump will always be coming back to him looking for more money to keep his real estate empire afloat. Trump's attitude has to be that he is somehow 'entitled' to the Saudi largesse, because they have it, and he needs it for his own purposes. Trump will have his people do some creative accounting that will include all sorts of vague and undocumented operating expenses, when realistically, the joint venture's greatest operating expense is Donald J. Trump himself.
Except: The reckoning trump never expected seems to have commenced. The only resolution that can sooth his melancholy may be the one offered to the lovely woman stoop'd to folly https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45613/when-lovely-woman-stoops-to-folly
If you're looking for poetic analogues, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas offers a more apt one in describing Donald Trump: "Do not go gentle into that good night quietly… "(But rather)… rage, rage against the dying light". That is Donald Trump, fighting and raging until the bitter end.
trump needs no urging to rage, rage …
Spot on.
Go to 1:50 into this clip from the 1993 movie, “Dave“, starring Kevin Kline:
https://youtu.be/pOgf3IaWlgU
The villain of the story, “Bob Alexander”, played by Frank Langella, initially believes that President Dave Mitchell’s speech to Congress confessing to a series of crimes is the final nail in the coffin for Mitchell, fulfilling Langella/ Alexander’s plot to install himself as President.
At first, Alexander is surrounded by enthusiastic supporters as he sits in his chair watching the speech. But when President Mitchell elaborates that it was Alexander who committed the crimes and orchestrated the entire plot, the camera cuts back to Alexander sitting alone, having been instantly abandoned by all of his fair-weather-friend supporters.
It’s a perfect illustration of the “rats fleeing the sinking ship“ scenario, which we’re now seeing unfolding in real time with regard to The Vile One, my favorite moniker for Defendant Trump.
It's so much fun reading Lucian's columns dealing with Defendant Dumpster. When one looks at the bizarre, if not deranged, writings coming from the Dumpster, it seems clear that he's under acute stress, and for good reason. Who wouldn't be with so many state & federal cases pending? I'm still hoping the stress builds to a breaking point and his heart (or what passes for a heart) finally just gives up and quits.
Some of us remember that most republicans stuck with Tricky Dick right to the morning of his resignation.
I was the groom's brother's girlfriend at a New Hampshire wedding a year or two after the resignation, so didn't really know any of the principals. I made a casual nasty crack about Tricky Dick in a mixed group … whammo! I was lucky to get out alive. The bride's mother, it turned out, was a NH (!) Republican national committeewoman—and still seething.
I was in law school in NH about that time and probably knew the bride’s mother. NH was a hard right state then.
That's funny, Thomas! I'll bet you did know her. I forget the family name; the daughter was Candy—a poet.The Union-Leader? Wasn't that the constantly quoted placeholder for today's RW press?
It still is...they just pretend to be Independent. Similar to the Dixiecrats of yore.
Yes, but not as crazy as it was in the 70s.
True.
The difference being once Nixon waved buh-bye Rs most Rs publicly disavowed Nixon while in private plotted revenge to seek impeach any D-Pres who colored outside the lines. Clinton was their revenge.
Juxtapose the polar opposite with Trump. Most Rs publicly support him while privately want Trump gone by any means. Add to that publicly calling for P-Biden and other Ad, officals to be impeached, criminally investigated, or to resign.
Aka the Mirror Effect
I never much cared for the name Donald but I sure have taken a liking to his new name, Defendant! Looking on the bright side at least he doesn’t have to update all his monograms.
Thank you very much, Lucian. I appreciate what you are doing.