As if there ever was one. When you get in a situation where you agree to sit down and talk with prosecutors whom you know have a passel of information about crimes that you know you have committed, it may be called a proffer, but that’s just so it looks better for you in newspaper stories. The way you are seen by your partners in crime -- two of whom, in the case of former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, are Rudy Giuliani (already proffered) and Defendant Trump (recipient of target letter) – is another thing altogether.
As Mittens Romney tries to get Republicans to choose anyone but Trump over all the other folks. I don't see any winners. And now DeeDuhSantis is running behind Nikki Haley in one place. That ought to burn. And we just do need a little more time since people are still in the process of fleeing the clone of Trump, without the appeal (choke choke). Trump without the entertaining side, the P. T. Barnum side. I do hope more indictments are coming rapidly. Who knows what's going to happen anymore. But it was nice also today to hear that Synema's small donations are in the process of drying up.....but then they're saying that's sort of across the board. It's always interesting when something starts to trend, actually.
DeSantis may be going limp in national polls, but he's rock-hard in Florida. He just got a law passed requiring schools to teach that slavery benefitted the enslaved by giving them useful skills. This might be his plan for the new sex ed curriculum: teach about the benefits of rape. How getting raped might teach women a useful lesson-- like not to wear suggestive clothing.
Puddin' Fingers has got a totally compliant legislature rubber stamping everything he proposes -- Florida's now sort of like the early Roman Empire but without the grandeur, or the Augustus. This illustrates what he'd be like as president with a GOP Congress at his beck and call. Brrrr.....
With Doo Dah Santis writing the curriculum, they will be teaching that foolproof method of birth control, an aspirin between the knees. Works every time!
I saw late last night, Judith, that he's now trying to duck that enslavement equals future job opportunities after they've finished using you up, beating you, selling your children off and such, and he says he didn't write that. Please let him go all the way into the sewer and out to the world's larges cess pool. With Trump.
There are a ton of Blue State retirees who live here in DeSantistan. We are enjoying his failure to gain traction nationally due to these idiotic book bannings and midnight abortion rules. Hoping that Christie gets to destroy him in the debates.
I live in DeSantistan, there are a ton of retirees from Blue States who are enjoying the DeSantis crash and burn, he has no sense of humor and he snaps at reporters. My friends and I are hoping for a debate where Christie gets to slaughter him!
Judith, I know this is gonna make you a little angry, but I remember that sometime in the '90s a university press came out with a book that promised to be some kind of scientifically vetted, intellectually impeccable work on Rape and its prevention. the incredibly important findings: women shouldn't wear suggestive clothing. it might cheer you a little that virtually nobody was "buying" it and nobody bought it.
and you left out the way that rape might benefit the rapist, which would be to make him a more effective rapist, until he'd be able to commit the "perfect rape," after which he'd call his friends to tell them on several "perfect phonecalls."
I sure hope that was funny enough to justify the telling of a rape joke...
No offense taken. Sigh.... young women today often insist that they "should" be able to wear suggestive clothing and not have to worry about being raped. They're right-- they SHOULD be able to wear anything they want and not fear being raped. But that--alas-- is not how things ARE.
I can’t believe Bernie would be so disloyal to the man who pardoned him. And then there’s all that Rudy did for him after 9/11 as they both took full advantage of it.
I guess it’s true. There is no honor among thieves.
Thank goodness, Kevin. Thank goodness. Bernie had his little stint in prison and cooperating now says hey, it really is no fun and I don't want to go back ever.
Honor? Lol. Thieves are like most of the rest of us: they've got a balance scale in their heads like the one Lady Justice is often pictured with. Loyalty is in one bucket, self-interest in the other. When the cost of loyalty starts to conflict with self-interest (which might well include avoiding another term in prison), further loyalty becomes a liability and the individual, like the scale, flips.
I hope they all are buried so deep in criminal cases they will never see the light of day. Stopping at Trump corroborators isn't enough, though. There are well over 100 Congress critters who are still pushing the big lie, acting more like right wing fringe tv personalities than elected representatives who owe their constituents much more than ugly behavior and disinformation. They should be prosecuted as participants in tRump's plan to disrupt/prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and denying the degree of violence on 6Jan. Only cleaning house will restore trust in our government and preserve democracy.
I totally agree! I think lifetime appointments should be ended and judges selected on a rotating basis so each administration receives an equal number of appointees.
And I hope that those Trump corroborators includes Mrs. Clarence Thomas, otherwise known as Ginni, known for her use of the word "Kracken," and now she is one.
I think Bernie Kerik would rather not go back to federal prison, and I think he knows of what the feds are capable of so once he lost the immunity from Trump he was running to them to offer them everything he ever had and even a few things about Giuliani that he knew.
Because if he goes back to prison, he won't get another pardon, and he knows that. The guy who did pardon him the first time will possibly be in the same prison he would be in.
Trump will find out shortly who his friends are and I don't think he has many. They're the ones the feds have called or asked to "assist in our inquiries" (as the British so quaintly put it). They'll cut him loose as soon as they can.
"I never saw that man before in my life!" I bet Trump has never been thrown under the bus so this will be a new experience for him.
I am fervently hoping for another indictment from one or more quarters this week. I'm betting Jack Smith, but Fani Willis and the NY AG are hot on Trump's heels as well.
Yes it is only Monday, but I dare say it will be a very long week for one Donald Trump.
It's possible that mass prayers, focused on a tangible, reasonably possible outcome, repeated over a good stretch of time, could have a scientifically measurable effect, in the sense that it "stirs up the animal spirits," the coiled energy of a huge swath of the populace, who THEN take more concrete steps or redouble their previous commitments ( to organizing, donating, volunteering, leafleting, recommending opposition to Trump and the GOP to their friends and neighbors, writing letters to the editor and making phone calls to talk radio shows, attending rallies, renting a hall for a guest speaker against Trump and the right-wing attacks on our constitutional rights, sponsoring bake sales - I could go on and on with this kind of list, and so could most you, I'll bet, my basic point being that any focused energy publicly shared and organized that is more or less relentlessly repeated over months, alters the "Zeitgeist," and should never be underestimated.
The Republicans have so far been much better at this kind of thing, it's a shame the Democrats are so late to catch on.
Yes, it’s only Monday, and likely to be a long week. But aren’t they all long these days? *Rump is already in pre-indictment meltdown to brainwash his cult for the announcement. And they will believe it’s all a ‘coordinated hoax’, as he has labeled it. The American psychosis (thank you David Corn) continues to thrive. DeSatan’s star is fortunately beginning to dim as he does yet another reboot of his struggling campaign. Democrats are finally calling out RFK Jr. as the looney-toon he is, and he complains *Rump-like that he’s getting the media’s *Rump treatment. Unfair! Unfair! The Rethugs, with the exception of Christie, still won’t take *Rump on directly. And Pence has revealed himself to be the sniveling weakling we already knew he is. Are we having fun yet? Meanwhile, the economy/unemployment is doing great, but Biden gets no credit for it. Go figure. The planet is burning up with the hottest temperatures ever measured in many places, yet there doesn’t seem to be any great alarm as people die of the heat, and wildfires rage. Meanwhile, Texas’ governor seems to think drowning people attempting to cross the Rio Grande makes a lot of sense. Well, it is Texas, after all. If this sounds a little incoherent it’s because it is. There doesn’t seem to be any rationale to any of this as so much seems to be out of control and senseless in these Disunited States of America. The hundreds of thousands of Israelis rightly protesting in their streets seem to be much better focused than we are. Under what circumstances will we achieve such focus? That’s an essay question. Extra credit for anyone who answers it in no more than 100 words.
I wish there was a 'don't like' emoji although I agree with what you are saying, Richard. You are spot on. As far as the essay question, too late at night for me. Maybe MoveOn or other such industries could set up a march in multiple cities like the Women's March, March for Science, name it March for Democracy. I'd definitely go. I'll research it.
I feel so under water with this crap that I almost don't / can't believe it's happening. To quote a girlfriend who always loused up clichés, I find this beyond the beyond.
Lucian! Would it be violating the spirit of the writers' strike right now to sell a network "Perp Walks of the Rich and Famous -- and his stooges"? A docudrama. Malkovich as Rudy. Too bad Alan Arkin just died: he'd have been a great Kerik. And who plays Defendant Trump? Easy-peasy: create it (and I do mean *it*) with A.I.!
Count on much more of the same through the next several months, Trump is a veritable cornucopia of delights to the legal profession and the Special Counsel in particular!
I'm thinking more of something like a painting inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. A whole population of Trumpian figures engaging in grifts, frauds, thefts, and rapes done over the course of Trump's lifetime.
I left my home country with my parents in the 60's and have loved the USA more than anyone can understand, unless you too, emigrated when young. At this point I am grateful that mom and dad are not around to witness this circus, to be present to what appears to be the ongoing re-enslavement of minorities, the bringing women to submission, the twisting of our Christian values! No matter what our country throws on the old orange disaster, I am starting to believe that he will just get away with it. He said it himself, like any good dicktator: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
Bernie Kerik, being one of the great shitheels of our time and an obvious lifelong sociopath, deserves everything rotten that comes his way.
considering that he operated as Giuliani's Mean Guy Toy, I will uncharacteristically resist trying to describe Rudy, except to say that, unlike many other folks, I never once saw him as anything other than what he is.
For the benefit of any unfamiliar with Kerik's career, it began with the NYPD assigning him to be Rudy's driver. Rudy apparently recognized one of his own kind and quickly moved him up through the ranks.
I might have known that once upon a time, and if Kerik's not the usual ex-cop with years of street experience, it might just explain the extent of his total corruption. that extent is monumental, even for this town. Lynch, the current PBA president, is given to more outright fascist rhetoric, but that's what he thinks the job is supposed to be, which is to represent what he thinks are the interests of the rank-and-file. Kerik's job was to serve everybody in the city, and the Commissioner holds enormous power.
Kerik is a sort of "recurring non-character presence" in "Stolen Youth," that four-part documentary about the "parent" who became a cult leader to a bunch of Sarah Lawrence kids. I got it on Hulu, but it's definitely worth paying for (and I tend to hate pretty much ALL of the other documentaries about cult leaders). this one is different.
it tends to be true of this bunch that they don't care very much about appearances, except to the extent that they don't want to go to jail. Kerik definitely failed THERE.
I hope the prick gave them EVERYTHING they wanted...
But as Trump has already explained, he is bravely facing down these reckless felony charges - all eighty-one of them, so far - for us, for America, to show he won't be intimidated by the Crazy Democrats, the Crooked FBI or the Deep State traitors! Why are people so ungrateful, anyway?
And his base lustily cheers him on, it's beyond any satire imaginable outside of the absurdist territory of a novel like Catch 22,* or the most zany science fiction.
* Sgt. Milo Minderbinder calmly arranges a plot that does cause even Yossarian to object:
"To preserve his sanity against the formalized lunacy of the military mind in action, Yossarian
had to turn madman. Yet even Yossarian is more the patriot than Sgt. Minderbinder, the business
mind in action. Even Yossarian has to protest when Minderbinder arranges with the Germans to
knock American planes down, at a thousand dollars per plane. Minderbinder is horrified - "Have
you no respect for the sanctity of a business contract? - and Yossarian feels ashamed of himself."
- From Nelson Algren's review in The Nation (4 November 1961)
Plenty of criminal defendants who will be singing like canaries (if they haven’t already) when questioned by Jack Smith and Company. Perhaps, they will need a furry little kitten to help them deal with their traumatic confessions.
As Mittens Romney tries to get Republicans to choose anyone but Trump over all the other folks. I don't see any winners. And now DeeDuhSantis is running behind Nikki Haley in one place. That ought to burn. And we just do need a little more time since people are still in the process of fleeing the clone of Trump, without the appeal (choke choke). Trump without the entertaining side, the P. T. Barnum side. I do hope more indictments are coming rapidly. Who knows what's going to happen anymore. But it was nice also today to hear that Synema's small donations are in the process of drying up.....but then they're saying that's sort of across the board. It's always interesting when something starts to trend, actually.
DeSantis may be going limp in national polls, but he's rock-hard in Florida. He just got a law passed requiring schools to teach that slavery benefitted the enslaved by giving them useful skills. This might be his plan for the new sex ed curriculum: teach about the benefits of rape. How getting raped might teach women a useful lesson-- like not to wear suggestive clothing.
Puddin' Fingers has got a totally compliant legislature rubber stamping everything he proposes -- Florida's now sort of like the early Roman Empire but without the grandeur, or the Augustus. This illustrates what he'd be like as president with a GOP Congress at his beck and call. Brrrr.....
And he has the Cuban mafia, the Castros ran out of Cuba.
And US policy let China buy into Cuba.
That is true.
Or to not be women....that would be safest, right, Judith? OMG.
With Doo Dah Santis writing the curriculum, they will be teaching that foolproof method of birth control, an aspirin between the knees. Works every time!
I saw late last night, Judith, that he's now trying to duck that enslavement equals future job opportunities after they've finished using you up, beating you, selling your children off and such, and he says he didn't write that. Please let him go all the way into the sewer and out to the world's larges cess pool. With Trump.
There are a ton of Blue State retirees who live here in DeSantistan. We are enjoying his failure to gain traction nationally due to these idiotic book bannings and midnight abortion rules. Hoping that Christie gets to destroy him in the debates.
I live in DeSantistan, there are a ton of retirees from Blue States who are enjoying the DeSantis crash and burn, he has no sense of humor and he snaps at reporters. My friends and I are hoping for a debate where Christie gets to slaughter him!
That would be fun to watch!
Judith, I know this is gonna make you a little angry, but I remember that sometime in the '90s a university press came out with a book that promised to be some kind of scientifically vetted, intellectually impeccable work on Rape and its prevention. the incredibly important findings: women shouldn't wear suggestive clothing. it might cheer you a little that virtually nobody was "buying" it and nobody bought it.
and you left out the way that rape might benefit the rapist, which would be to make him a more effective rapist, until he'd be able to commit the "perfect rape," after which he'd call his friends to tell them on several "perfect phonecalls."
I sure hope that was funny enough to justify the telling of a rape joke...
No offense taken. Sigh.... young women today often insist that they "should" be able to wear suggestive clothing and not have to worry about being raped. They're right-- they SHOULD be able to wear anything they want and not fear being raped. But that--alas-- is not how things ARE.
Thank you Mary for informing us of Mitt Romney’s full first name. Mittens!
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought everybody knew. hahaha
But Kyrsten still has the Zion boys.
I can’t believe Bernie would be so disloyal to the man who pardoned him. And then there’s all that Rudy did for him after 9/11 as they both took full advantage of it.
I guess it’s true. There is no honor among thieves.
Thank goodness, Kevin. Thank goodness. Bernie had his little stint in prison and cooperating now says hey, it really is no fun and I don't want to go back ever.
Honor? Lol. Thieves are like most of the rest of us: they've got a balance scale in their heads like the one Lady Justice is often pictured with. Loyalty is in one bucket, self-interest in the other. When the cost of loyalty starts to conflict with self-interest (which might well include avoiding another term in prison), further loyalty becomes a liability and the individual, like the scale, flips.
Bermie is just flipping on a walking dead dude.
I’m not surprised that you this time I don’t tttttttttttrrrrrtrf
Huh
I hope they all are buried so deep in criminal cases they will never see the light of day. Stopping at Trump corroborators isn't enough, though. There are well over 100 Congress critters who are still pushing the big lie, acting more like right wing fringe tv personalities than elected representatives who owe their constituents much more than ugly behavior and disinformation. They should be prosecuted as participants in tRump's plan to disrupt/prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and denying the degree of violence on 6Jan. Only cleaning house will restore trust in our government and preserve democracy.
And then, there’s SCOTUS....a real hotbed of criminality.....let’s get rid of the six liars and insurrectionist supporters, L P.
I totally agree! I think lifetime appointments should be ended and judges selected on a rotating basis so each administration receives an equal number of appointees.
And I hope that those Trump corroborators includes Mrs. Clarence Thomas, otherwise known as Ginni, known for her use of the word "Kracken," and now she is one.
"Why do you hate the freedom of speech and the First Amendment so much, Deep State traitor?"
- The usual ultra-right wing suspects
I think Bernie Kerik would rather not go back to federal prison, and I think he knows of what the feds are capable of so once he lost the immunity from Trump he was running to them to offer them everything he ever had and even a few things about Giuliani that he knew.
Because if he goes back to prison, he won't get another pardon, and he knows that. The guy who did pardon him the first time will possibly be in the same prison he would be in.
Trump will find out shortly who his friends are and I don't think he has many. They're the ones the feds have called or asked to "assist in our inquiries" (as the British so quaintly put it). They'll cut him loose as soon as they can.
"I never saw that man before in my life!" I bet Trump has never been thrown under the bus so this will be a new experience for him.
I am fervently hoping for another indictment from one or more quarters this week. I'm betting Jack Smith, but Fani Willis and the NY AG are hot on Trump's heels as well.
Yes it is only Monday, but I dare say it will be a very long week for one Donald Trump.
If our dreams come true!
I'm not religious, but again:
let us pray...
It's possible that mass prayers, focused on a tangible, reasonably possible outcome, repeated over a good stretch of time, could have a scientifically measurable effect, in the sense that it "stirs up the animal spirits," the coiled energy of a huge swath of the populace, who THEN take more concrete steps or redouble their previous commitments ( to organizing, donating, volunteering, leafleting, recommending opposition to Trump and the GOP to their friends and neighbors, writing letters to the editor and making phone calls to talk radio shows, attending rallies, renting a hall for a guest speaker against Trump and the right-wing attacks on our constitutional rights, sponsoring bake sales - I could go on and on with this kind of list, and so could most you, I'll bet, my basic point being that any focused energy publicly shared and organized that is more or less relentlessly repeated over months, alters the "Zeitgeist," and should never be underestimated.
The Republicans have so far been much better at this kind of thing, it's a shame the Democrats are so late to catch on.
Yes, it’s only Monday, and likely to be a long week. But aren’t they all long these days? *Rump is already in pre-indictment meltdown to brainwash his cult for the announcement. And they will believe it’s all a ‘coordinated hoax’, as he has labeled it. The American psychosis (thank you David Corn) continues to thrive. DeSatan’s star is fortunately beginning to dim as he does yet another reboot of his struggling campaign. Democrats are finally calling out RFK Jr. as the looney-toon he is, and he complains *Rump-like that he’s getting the media’s *Rump treatment. Unfair! Unfair! The Rethugs, with the exception of Christie, still won’t take *Rump on directly. And Pence has revealed himself to be the sniveling weakling we already knew he is. Are we having fun yet? Meanwhile, the economy/unemployment is doing great, but Biden gets no credit for it. Go figure. The planet is burning up with the hottest temperatures ever measured in many places, yet there doesn’t seem to be any great alarm as people die of the heat, and wildfires rage. Meanwhile, Texas’ governor seems to think drowning people attempting to cross the Rio Grande makes a lot of sense. Well, it is Texas, after all. If this sounds a little incoherent it’s because it is. There doesn’t seem to be any rationale to any of this as so much seems to be out of control and senseless in these Disunited States of America. The hundreds of thousands of Israelis rightly protesting in their streets seem to be much better focused than we are. Under what circumstances will we achieve such focus? That’s an essay question. Extra credit for anyone who answers it in no more than 100 words.
When the Mind Police identify and perform lobotomy's on all Trump supporters.
Sincerely,
Chief John Anderton
Talk about mass microsurgery...
I wish there was a 'don't like' emoji although I agree with what you are saying, Richard. You are spot on. As far as the essay question, too late at night for me. Maybe MoveOn or other such industries could set up a march in multiple cities like the Women's March, March for Science, name it March for Democracy. I'd definitely go. I'll research it.
I feel so under water with this crap that I almost don't / can't believe it's happening. To quote a girlfriend who always loused up clichés, I find this beyond the beyond.
Lucian! Would it be violating the spirit of the writers' strike right now to sell a network "Perp Walks of the Rich and Famous -- and his stooges"? A docudrama. Malkovich as Rudy. Too bad Alan Arkin just died: he'd have been a great Kerik. And who plays Defendant Trump? Easy-peasy: create it (and I do mean *it*) with A.I.!
Rudy & Trump as cellmates? Relishing the image.
With Bernie next cage to theirs....
It's feeling a bit like Christmas morning as the dominos start falling . :)
Count on much more of the same through the next several months, Trump is a veritable cornucopia of delights to the legal profession and the Special Counsel in particular!
I'm thinking more of something like a painting inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. A whole population of Trumpian figures engaging in grifts, frauds, thefts, and rapes done over the course of Trump's lifetime.
LOL, that about sums it up as well.
Yep. Only Monday ;-))
You know Lucien, your columns keep me above water
Not only do we get to keep our heads above water. We get umbrella drinks at poolside!
Brings a smile to my face. Yep!
Absolutely! Gotta love those scum bags…
I left my home country with my parents in the 60's and have loved the USA more than anyone can understand, unless you too, emigrated when young. At this point I am grateful that mom and dad are not around to witness this circus, to be present to what appears to be the ongoing re-enslavement of minorities, the bringing women to submission, the twisting of our Christian values! No matter what our country throws on the old orange disaster, I am starting to believe that he will just get away with it. He said it himself, like any good dicktator: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
Bernie Kerik, being one of the great shitheels of our time and an obvious lifelong sociopath, deserves everything rotten that comes his way.
considering that he operated as Giuliani's Mean Guy Toy, I will uncharacteristically resist trying to describe Rudy, except to say that, unlike many other folks, I never once saw him as anything other than what he is.
For the benefit of any unfamiliar with Kerik's career, it began with the NYPD assigning him to be Rudy's driver. Rudy apparently recognized one of his own kind and quickly moved him up through the ranks.
I might have known that once upon a time, and if Kerik's not the usual ex-cop with years of street experience, it might just explain the extent of his total corruption. that extent is monumental, even for this town. Lynch, the current PBA president, is given to more outright fascist rhetoric, but that's what he thinks the job is supposed to be, which is to represent what he thinks are the interests of the rank-and-file. Kerik's job was to serve everybody in the city, and the Commissioner holds enormous power.
Kerik is a sort of "recurring non-character presence" in "Stolen Youth," that four-part documentary about the "parent" who became a cult leader to a bunch of Sarah Lawrence kids. I got it on Hulu, but it's definitely worth paying for (and I tend to hate pretty much ALL of the other documentaries about cult leaders). this one is different.
it tends to be true of this bunch that they don't care very much about appearances, except to the extent that they don't want to go to jail. Kerik definitely failed THERE.
I hope the prick gave them EVERYTHING they wanted...
But as Trump has already explained, he is bravely facing down these reckless felony charges - all eighty-one of them, so far - for us, for America, to show he won't be intimidated by the Crazy Democrats, the Crooked FBI or the Deep State traitors! Why are people so ungrateful, anyway?
And his base lustily cheers him on, it's beyond any satire imaginable outside of the absurdist territory of a novel like Catch 22,* or the most zany science fiction.
* Sgt. Milo Minderbinder calmly arranges a plot that does cause even Yossarian to object:
"To preserve his sanity against the formalized lunacy of the military mind in action, Yossarian
had to turn madman. Yet even Yossarian is more the patriot than Sgt. Minderbinder, the business
mind in action. Even Yossarian has to protest when Minderbinder arranges with the Germans to
knock American planes down, at a thousand dollars per plane. Minderbinder is horrified - "Have
you no respect for the sanctity of a business contract? - and Yossarian feels ashamed of himself."
- From Nelson Algren's review in The Nation (4 November 1961)
Plenty of criminal defendants who will be singing like canaries (if they haven’t already) when questioned by Jack Smith and Company. Perhaps, they will need a furry little kitten to help them deal with their traumatic confessions.
And Smith will look like the cat who caught the canary.
Let’s hope!🤞🏼