Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Laurence Tribe @tribeLaw

Espionage, anyone?

Game, set, match.

Trump on Hannity gave away the ENTIRE game in the classified documents case:

**HE DID IT FOR PERSONAL PROFIT**

Why has no one jumped on this?

TRUMP: “I have the right to take stuff. You know they ended up paying Nixon $18 million for what he had.”

Watch Here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1642623915980619776

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1643215266539528193

[Rick Plant]

A couple of days ago on Twitter, I tweeted out to my followers to watch and see how fast Trump's stooge supporters in Congress start to dump Trump after his arrest and arraignment. That will have a good indication of how they see him no longer viable in the party.

Well, it wasn't even 24 hours after Donnie was arrested when right wing MAGA Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky jumped ship and defected to DeSantis. Even Massie knows Trump is finished and headed for prison, otherwise he never would have left the cult.

 Looking forward to Trump raging over losing a cult member on "Truth Social". 

Republican Rep. Massie Defects to DeSantis Day After Trump Arrest
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/republican-rep-defects-desantis-day-212210632.html
   

[Rick Plant]

'Caged animal' Trump may need a 'secure padded cell' as trial progresses: psychiatrist



According to noted psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank of the George Washington University Medical Center, the Donald Trump he watched enter a Manhattan courtroom last week looked completely deflated and aware that he is all alone as his world starts to collapse under investigative scrutiny.

Frank, author of "Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President," spoke with Salon's Chauncey DeVega, and was asked about Trump's state of mind now that he has been saddled with 34 felony counts that forced him to return to Manhattan to face the music.

Asked about the look on the former president's face as he entered the courtroom and glared at reporters, Frank explained that he saw a "defeated" man.

Saying Trump's initial expression "revealed" the real Trump, Frank explained, "At his core, what we see in that moment with Trump in Manhattan was that he knows he is a criminal who has finally been caught and may be held responsible for his wrongdoing."

"To be even blunter, Trump looked like a predatory animal that had been caged. 'Evil' is not a psychoanalytic term, but that was his affect in the moment," he continued. "What I also saw that was very striking in that moment was that Trump looked like he was full of self-pity, he was defeated and alone; he seemed to realize that nobody feels sorry for him."

With Salon's DeVega pointing out the former president looked like a "predator," Frank suggested the former president has never been more dangerous.

"Predators can massively regress in such circumstances and lose even a modicum of self-control. They lash out and need to be restrained for their safety and that of their caregivers. That's why we have secure padded cells (euphemized as "quiet rooms") inside locked wards in mental hospitals," he explained before adding, "When Trump is cornered, as he is now with this felony case, he will become increasingly paranoid or defeated. I don't know exactly what will happen with the likes of Trump because such human predators are usually denied bail or committed to a hospital for supervision — and medication."

Adding that Trump is "... is a child, emotionally" he continued, "The deep problem with Trump is that he is a bully. Trump is also a coward. The combination of those traits is very dangerous.

Even Trump's wife, let alone the rest of his family, didn't accompany him to his arraignment. Trump imagines that he is loved and supported by the American people. He's a person who is dominated by a need to spoil or attack what's good in other people -- and he does it all without an ounce of guilt. Trump views relationships and the world in a transactional way. Everything is about winning and losing. That is the way of the world for someone like Trump. Trump really does not have any real, honest friendships. You either sycophantically support and agree with him or you're written off.

On a certain level, Trump may know that he is alone and feeling lonely. Because of that deep self-pity, Trump is very happy to use a fake mugshot image as a way of taking advantage of other people and getting money from them — but on his own terms. By selling his own mugshot, Trump is actually reversing, in his mind, the feelings of humiliation he would experience from having his mugshot taken by the police. He's made a choice. It's about having power. As compared to how he looked in court, Trump has control over the fake mugshot. Donald Trump can turn any loss -- in his mind at least — into a gain. In his mind, Trump can do anything he wants.

Trump feeds on the unconditional love and adulation of his audience. It inflates him. He becomes more alive at Mar-a-Lago. Other people's fantasies of Trump make him feel powerful. But even there, Trump did not look as lively as usual. He was defeated on Tuesday. His need for narcissistic fuel was critical after being arraigned and he couldn't be completely satisfied in the usual ways. Trump is desperate.

Read More Here: https://www.salon.com/2023/04/07/he-is-visualizing-burning-things-and-blowing-them-up-how-may-be-coping-with-being-caught/

[Rick Plant]

Republicans locked into an 'escalating civil war' over Trump: report

The war between Donald Trump and the powerful Club for Growth is threatening to undermine the Republican party's plans for the 2024 election and that could blow up endorsement plans.

According to a report from the Daily Beast, the Club for Growth has made it clear they don't want Donald Trump at the top of the 2024 Republican Party ticket and so they are reportedly pressuring GOP lawmakers to not endorse the now-indicted former president and that could lead Trump to blow up their own runs for office.

The report adds, "The Club, as it’s called in Beltway shorthand, used to work closely with Trump and his political operation. But since the two camps backed different candidates in the 2022 midterm primaries, their relationship has cratered. Trump has openly savaged the Club and its leadership; in turn, the Club has not-so-subtly signaled its opposition to Trump’s third White House bid."

"Some Republicans worry that the power struggle will only cause collateral damage that could contribute to more disappointing election results and needless feuding," the report continues before adding, "The bad blood between Trumpworld and the Club has been obvious for some time—and appears to be getting worse."

According to one GOP operative, "Members of the House are so afraid of Trump turning on them, they are so afraid to step out of line, that they just go along with it,” then adding, "They’re in a small district, generally speaking, and you can’t risk your reelection because you have this guy turn on you. You just don’t have the power to go against him. It’s the fear-driven model.”

You can read more here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gop-civil-war-between-trump-and-club-for-growth-thats-already-making-2024-awkward?ref=home

[Rick Plant]

Republicans suffered through a 'uniformly bad' week following Trump's indictment: analyst



This past Tuesday Donald Trump made history by becoming the first former president to be hauled into court and be indicted on felony charges and, for Republicans, the rest of the week went downhill from that point.

That is the opinion of the Washington Post's longtime analyst Dan Balz, who surveyed the week's damage that included a key election loss in Wisconsin, infighting among the GOP's House leadership and concluded with the terrible optics of the far-right Republican-dominated Tennessee House expelling two Black lawmakers for protesting the carnage being inflicted on America's children due to the easy availability of high-powered weaponry.

As Balz wrote, it was a "uniformly bad' week to be a Republican and many conservatives may not recognize just how bad it was.

According to the analyst, Republicans just watched the man who could be at the top of the 2024 GOP presidential ticket slammed with 34 felony charges while New Yorkers jeered him outside the courtroom.

"Trump’s arraignment last Tuesday in New York on criminal charges — however the case turns out — and his subsequent speech later that evening from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, which was replete with lies, distortions and grievances, highlighted the degree to which the former president remains at once the dominant force in the Republican Party, a threat to democratic norms and institutions, and a compromised candidate for president in 2024," he wrote.

Add to that, in Wisconsin, conservatives suffered a devastating blow with an election loss for a Supreme Court seat, with Balz writing, "Wisconsin voters showed again how damaging the Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade has been to the Republicans, no matter how fervently they had worked to make it happen. Tuesday’s decisive vote in Wisconsin, which flips the balance of power on the state Supreme Court from conservative to liberal, has profound implications not just for the state’s politics but also potentially for the nation."

The ejection of the two Black Tennessee lawmakers capped off the week and outraged the country in light of the fact that a white Democrat, who took part in the same protest, held onto her seat, leading to accusations of racism.

"In Tennessee, meanwhile, the expulsion on Thursday of two young, Black Democratic legislators from the state House took political retribution to a new level and, not incidentally, injected race into the politics of the moment in ways that were inescapable," Balz wrote. "After the March 27 killing of six people, including three children, at a Nashville school, and protests calling for action on guns, Republican legislators found a new way to shock the conscience by punishing two of the protesters by stripping them of their elected offices."

According to the analyst, Donald Trump is at the center of the GOP's problems this week since he emboldened the GOP to move to the far-right over the last six years -- and now it is coming back to haunt them.

"The issues around Trump have been present since he first ran for president eight years ago. His message now as then touches chords of grievance, alienation and racism that had begun to emerge during Barack Obama’s presidency but which have burst out more dangerously since," he concluded.

https://www.rawstory.com/gop-in-disarray-2659757501/

[Rick Plant]

Another right wing manufactured conspiracy theory bites the dust!

Matt Taibbi mocked following MSNBC host's 'public beat-down'



Journalist Matt Taibbi admitted to repeated errors in his reporting – and was left stammering – in a brutal interview segment Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”

Hasan called out Taibbi for multiple falsehoods in Taibbi’s "Twitter Files "claims regarding the 2020 election.

“You talk a lot about the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) in the Twitter Files, which Stanford and the University of Washington founded to monitor attacks on our elections. You say some stuff about them that a lot of your critics say is not true and that affects your credibility. You say the EIP was formed in response to the government dropping its proposal for a disinformation governance board, but that’s not true: It was formed two years earlier. You suggest it was government funded, even though it wasn’t."

“You say they labeled 22 million tweets as misinformation in the runup to the 2020 vote. They didn’t,” Hasan said. “They flagged 3,000 election-misinformation tweets so you were only 21,997,000 off. You also claimed the EIP was partnered with the government cyber-security and infrastructure agency CISA to censor Twitter, but you mix up CISA, a Homeland Security agency, with Center for Internet Security – CIS – a non-profit. In fact, you added an aided an A to CIS in brackets to make that false claim. It’s just error after error.”

Taibbi admitted on air, “That was a mistake. That was an error, but the other ones aren’t.”

But Taibbi would admit on his own Twitter account that three of Hassan’s accusations were correct. (And then Taibbi then launched a tweetstorm of attacks at MSNBC for its coverage of other subjects.)

The devastation did not go unnoticed at The Bulwark. Here’s how Jonathan V. Last reported it.

“Russia-loving, Musk errand boy Matt Taibbi went on Mehdi Hasan’s show this week. No más! Those with a humiliation kink will definitely want to watch the whole thing. Those with weak stomachs should probably pass."

“Normally I’d be against this sort of premeditated public beat-down. But here’s the thing about Taibbi: If anyone deserves it, it’s him. Because this isn’t the low-point of his career. Heck, this isn’t even his most embarrassing moment of the last year"

Last offered this sarcastic assessment of Taibbi:

“Just another brave, anti-woke, tankie truth-teller getting targeted by the dreaded liberal media. Because truly, liberal media bias is the single most important threat facing the world.”

Watch interview segment here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1644061802970468376

[Rick Plant]

Georgia DA expected to 'go big' with Trump indictment



Now that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Donald Trump on 34 felony counts related to hush money payments to an adult film star and Playboy model before the 2016 election, all eyes are focused on Fulton County, Georgia, where the next shoe is poised to drop that could force the former president to make another court appearance.

According to a report from the New York Times, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could be bringing a case against Trump and an assortment of aides and supporters that will be far more complex and far-reaching than the legal proceedings in New York City.

With the Times describing Trump as facing a "blizzard of legal challenges," the Georgia investigation into the former president's attempts to tamper with the 2020 presidential election results could further bog down his efforts to rise above it all and make a third run for the presidency.

The Times reports, "While nothing is certain, there are numerous signs that she may go big, with a more kaleidoscopic indictment charging not only Mr. Trump, but perhaps a dozen or more of his allies," before adding, "Nearly 20 people are already known to have been told that they are targets who could face charges, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and David Shafer, the head of the Georgia Republican Party."

It further notes: "The wide scope of the investigation has been evident for months, and Ms. Willis has said that seeking an indictment under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, statute is an option that she is considering," the Times report added that Willis "may do so after a new grand jury begins its work in the second week of May, though nothing is set in stone. Typically, presenting such cases to a regular grand jury is a short process that takes a day or two."

Regarding using RICO to go after Trump and his associates, Willis previously stated, "RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office or law enforcement to tell the whole story. And so we use it as a tool so that they can have all the information they need to make a wise decision.”

Read More Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/us/trump-georgia-election-fani-willis.html