Tommy Carcetti
Tommy Carcetti's JournalBREAKING NEWS: "Extremely somber" DeSantis decries Trump indictment
In a manner which could only be described as extremely somber and subdued, Ron DeSantis—the highly controversial Florida governor and potential Republican candidate for President in 2024—harshly criticized the forthcoming indictment of former President Donald Trump by a Manhattan grand jury for charges relating to alleged hush payments made to a mistress during the 2016 campaign.
Governor DeSantis appeared at a press conference in Tallahassee on Friday morning, where he was flanked by several of his staffers who—for reasons not explained to the media—could be seen wearing New Years Eve styled party hats and holding festive noisemakers.
“What [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg is doing to President Trump is nothing short of a politically motivated witch hunt,” DeSantis said. “We should all be nothing short of appalled by such an un-American intrusion into the justice system.”
As the Governor spoke this, the muscles at both corners of his mouth appeared to rapidly twitch, indicating that he was either attempting to stifle a broad smile or otherwise suffering from severe abdominal discomfort.
“We cannot allow the raw politicization that could very well derail the presidential campaign of the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, casting that entire race into a chaotic, open-ended contest which anyone besides him could win,” he added.
DeSantis then paused for just a brief second to reach beneath his podium in order to take a drink to clear his throat; however, instead of a cup of water, he appeared to sip from a champagne flute, although not before exchanging a brief clink of glasses with his spokeswoman Christina Pushaw.
“George Soros,” DeSantis then added without any sort of context whatsoever as his eyes scanned the room for any sort of reaction. “Wait, am I doing this right?”
The Governor then re-iterated his prior statement that should former President Trump choose not to voluntarily surrender himself to the Manhattan Courthouse by Tuesday for arraignment, Florida law enforcement personnel would play no role in extraditing him to New York to face charges.
“But to be clear, I’m not actually ordering Florida law enforcement to stand down,” he explained further. “You see, as it turns out, I inadvertently delegated the task of extradition of accused individuals to other jurisdictions to members of Disney Park Security. So the ball’s actually in their court, legally. Good luck with that, fellas. Remember: If you can dream it, you can do it!”
Nonetheless, Governor DeSantis left no doubt whatsoever that he viewed the decision to impose criminal charges against the man who has referred to him at various times as “Ron DeSanctimonius,” “Meatball Ron,” “Shutdown Ron,” and “Tiny D” as an “inexcusable miscarriage of justice” to which he “absolutely, positively will not stand for.”
“If there’s anything that I cannot be any more clear about, it’s that we should never, ever accept a world where someone like Donald Trump is so falsely maligne—Oh, hey! Pudding cups! Who else here wants some?” DeSantis began before Pushaw handed him a small plastic snack container, thus abruptly concluding the press conference.
DETAILS AT ELEVEN.
Ladies and gentlemen...
...WE GOT HIM!!!!
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1641552664780570625
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/03/30/nyregion/trump-indictment-news#the-unprecedented-case-against-trump-will-have-wide-ranging-implications
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March 30, 2023, 5:26 p.m. ET3 minutes ago
3 minutes ago
Grand Jury Votes to Indict Donald Trump in New York: Live Updates
Mr. Trump will be the first former president to face criminal charges. The precise charges are not yet known, but the case is focused on a hush-money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign.
A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges.
The felony indictment, filed under seal by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, will likely be announced in the coming days. By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, will have asked Mr. Trump to surrender and to face arraignment on charges that remain unknown for now.
Mr. Trump has for decades avoided criminal charges despite persistent scrutiny and repeated investigations, creating an aura of legal invincibility that the vote to indict now threatens to puncture.
His actions surrounding his 2020 electoral defeat are now the focus of a separate federal investigation, and a Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.
But unlike the investigations that arose from his time in the White House, this case is built around a tawdry episode that predates Mr. Trump’s presidency. The reality star turned presidential candidate who shocked the political establishment by winning the White House now faces a reckoning for a hush money payment that buried a sex scandal in the final days of the 2016 campaign.
The cynical insidiousness of "Guns don't kill people; People kill people."
Another day, another mass shooting in America.
I'm far from the first person to point out that by this point, we've become numb to these horrors. What 20 years ago might have dominated the headlines for nearly a month will most likely get a couple of days at most until we move onto the next thing.
But even so, there are certain constants that arise from these events. And to me, one of the most prominent of these constants has to be the talking points. The snippets that get repeated over and over and over again.
The "thoughts and prayers" reaction.
The reflexive response to the "thoughts and prayers" reaction.
The parsing of the Second Amendment every which way in order to determine what really was it that the drafters of the Constitution wanted, and why.
Talk about needing to arm everyone and everybody in order to protect against other people who are also armed.
Talk about needing to address mental health, and then when it comes time to address mental health, not addressing mental health.
The talking points--over traditional media, over social media, in day to day conversation--are as endless as this epidemic itself. But there's one in particular that grates me more than any other.
And it's a classic. An old standard of sorts, coming from none other than the fetid, diseased bowels of the NRA itself: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."
It actually dates back farther than many people think, all the way back to 1911 when gun control legislation first became a subject of Congressional debate, and became more and more popularized throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s as mass shooting events became less and less of an anomaly, until it became regularly spouted by the likes of Charlton Heston and Wayne La Pierre.
And while the endless repetition of the phrase has essentially reduced it to nothing more than a mindless cliché, I think it's important to stop for a moment and recognize how truly cynical a belief it is. How it perpetuates the idea of dark fatalism, of hopelessness, of inaction.
And if anything, yesterday's shooting truly brings home the utter frustration of purpose that phrase.
Here at DU--a well-trafficked political message board of a distinct Left-leaning bent--when we first hear the breaking news alerts about an active shooter or a mass shooting, before all the facts are known, there is a certain reflexive urge to immediately label the shooting as having a conservative, right-wing motive to it.
And to be fair to us, it's not merely a desire for political gamesmanship. Most people on the Right place a lot more value and attention on gun ownership than most people on the Left, so it only stands to reason that more people with immediate access to guns are going to be at least somewhat conservative in nature. In one sense, it's a Law of Numbers rationalization.
And no doubt there are plenty of examples where the perpetrators of these mass shootings in fact have been affiliated with far-right ideologies. Charleston. El Paso. Tree of Life. And numerous others in the list.
But even so, the majority of mass shooting have no clear ideological motivation, either from the Right or the Left.
Indeed, the motivation for many of these tragedies can remain a mystery for years after they take place, including some of the most horrific of them all. Think Las Vegas or Sandy Hook, for example.
Obviously, every one of these shootings has been committed by a person. No one has ever been serendipitously shot by a gun without a human actor somehow at play. So to Messrs. Heston and La Pierre, congratulations; you are not wrong on that one singular point of order.
However, people are people, and right now we have 8 billion of them living on this earth, each with their own very unique set of life circumstances and beliefs. And when you boil that 8 billion down to people who have committed the unspeakable act of taking a gun and trying to shoot as many people as they possibly can, those select few are just as varied a sort as the entire whole.
We've had white mass shooters, black mass shooters, Hispanic mass shooters, Middle Eastern mass shooters and Asian mass shooters. We've had mass shooters who are young and old, male and female, believers (of virtually all practiced religions) and atheists, and--yes--both people on the Right and Left of the political spectrum. We've had mass shooters with a long documented history of mental illness and mass shooters with nary a red flag at all.
It's been reported that the individual who committed the horrific mass shooting yesterday in Nashville was transgendered. Importantly, it's not clear yet whether that person's gender identity had anything to do with that person's motive for the shooting, but even so--all that means is that it's one more wrinkle, one more tiny tile in this sick mosaic that has gripped our country.
And what is the only common thread among them all, the very only one?
Guns.
They all used guns to commit their mass murders.
Guns--far from the only deadly weapon that exists, but also by far the most convenient and efficient tool for the ordinary person to kill and to kill easily.
And right now, we are living in a country with a very uneven perspective as to these particular killing tools. With that uneven perspective, we find ourselves with more of these guns than any other developed country on Earth.
And with more guns, it is only logical that there are more gun deaths. And more mass gun deaths at that.
We also live in a country where there exists a certain mindset by many that gun ownership is somehow central to civilized life. That without the ability to have easy--if not virtually unfettered--access to guns, we'd somehow melt into bloody lawlessness. And not just any guns, but guns with very little practicality for ordinary civilians.
No, I'm sorry. This cannot in any way be boiled down to a "people problem."
Our problems as people are as wide and varied as our species.
But this one problem, this problem right now and right here in the United States?
It's a gun problem.
And don't let anyone tell you it isn't.
BREAKING NEWS: Trump to hold campaign event in the Swedish community of Harga
Fresh off a campaign rally in Waco, Texas on the 30th anniversary of the deadly standoff between federal authorities and members of the Branch Davidian cult near that city, the 2024 presidential campaign of Donald Trump has announced the location of its next campaign event. And unlike all previous Trump rallies, this event will be the first to take place overseas in Sweden.
The event is scheduled to take place in Harga, a small, rural commune located approximately four hours north of Stockholm, and was planned by Trump campaign staff at the suggestion and full encouragement of Harga village authorities. Most notably, rather than being confined to a single night’s festivities, the rally will actually run the course of a nine-day period in late June.
Campaign officials promise supporters will be treated to a spectacle like no other, as there will be no shortage of activities for attendees underneath the long Swedish summer’s sun.
“There will be things for Trump fans of all ages to see and do while in Harga,” a campaign spokesperson said. “Arts! Crafts! Music! Meat pies! Rune carvings! Group breeding sessions! And for our more senior crowd, cliff diving!”
One of the more ambitious events on the schedule will be an hours-long dance contest, where contestants will dance in a circle to an endless, incessant looping of singer-songwriter Natasha Owen’s campaign anthem, “Trump Won and You Know It!”
“The last person left dancing after all others have collapsed from sheer exhaustion will be awarded the prestigious title of ‘MAGA Queen,’” the spokesperson explained.
All Trump supporters planning to attend will be given complimentary sets of traditional garb worn by local Harga villagers—that being a simple white tunic and floral headdress—although a select few will be encouraged to come dressed in costume, such as a bear.
“The bear, of course, symbolizing the bearishly strong economy that will result when Donald Trump is returned to office,” the campaign spokesperson said.
The spokesperson was then reminded that the symbol for a strong, growing economy was actually a bull, not a bear.
“Whatever,” he replied. “I had a fifty-fifty shot, and I tried, so just cut me some slack, okay? I’m very new at this thing.”
The festival will conclude on the ninth day with a three-hour long speech by the candidate himself, set to the backdrop of a massive bonfire-type spectacle.
“President Trump will deliver a fiery message of hope to his supporters, where he will outline his new vision for America, explain policies he wishes to implement in his next term, and complain endlessly about the various legal investigations he sees himself being unfairly subjected to,” the spokesperson said. “But in all honesty, really just that last part.”
All in all, Trump campaign officials promise the Harga event will leave fans of the former President “screaming, with delight.”
“After supporters of Donald Trump arrive in Harga, I promise you, they will never leave,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“Want to leave,” he very quickly corrected himself. “They will never *want* to leave.”
DETAILS AT ELEVEN.
With apologies to Afroman: "Because They Got Woke: A Right-Wingers Lament"
That bank lost all that money
Because they got woke
My school won't give me a diploma
Because they got woke
They took Dilbert Man's cartoon away
Just because he spoke
'Cause they got woke
Because they got woke
Because they got woke
Ukraine got invaded by Russia
Because they got woke
Trump's under investigation
Because they got woke
I had to pay a dollar more today
For my burger and Coke
'Cause they got woke
Because they got woke
Because they got woke
M&Ms aren't wearing boots now
Because they got woke
Biden's ordering the same food as his wife now
Because they got woke
I just got arrested for the Insurrection
And now I'm broke
'Cause they got woke
Because they got woke
Because they got woke
A word of caution to both Trumpists and members of the Wet Blanket Brigade...
...if there is in fact no indictment announced of Donald Trump today--March 21, 2023--as Trump himself claimed there would be.
Trumpists might somehow take the opportunity to rub it in our faces, claiming--without evidence--that the expected indictments never panned out, and that their hero has once again emerged victorious over his persecutors.
Meanwhile, the contingent of ever-pessimistic people on the left (i.e. the Wet Blanket Brigade) might take the lack of indictment news today as just one more kick to the groin, one more Lucy-pulls-the-football-away moment, and rue in an Eeyore voice, "Looks like it's Fitzmas all over again."
Let's not forget just a little over a year ago in Winter 2022, when US and NATO intelligence saw evidence of a massive buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border, and believed there was substantial evidence of an imminent full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia (beyond the ongoing proxy conflict it had been waging in Eastern Ukraine since 2014). It was believed that the invasion would most likely take place after the close of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The Olympics ended on February 20, 2022; there was no full-scale invasion by Russia on that day.
Nor was there any full scale invasion by Russia on February 21, 2022.
By that point, certain pseudo-leftists on Twitter (e.g., Michael Tracey, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, etc.) began to laugh and crow, claiming there was never going to be any invasion of Ukraine by Russia and it was all just fear-mongering on the part of the US and the West, who just wanted nothing more than to impose their will and influence in that part of the world to the detriment of poor Russia.
And they continued to laugh and crow, for three more days...until February 24, 2022, when Russia began a massive, full-frontal invasion of Ukraine.
Bottom line is that it's foolish to get hung up on any one tree when you fail to realize you're in the middle of the forest.
BREAKING NEWS: Rapidly running out of options, Trump asks Mike Pence to be indicted in his place
As signs continue to indicate that former President Donald Trump may soon be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for charges stemming from illegal campaign payments, the former President has resorted to a rather unconventional tactic which he hopes may result in him avoiding criminal charges.
Specifically, Trump has reported reached out to his former Vice President, Mike Pence, and asked that Pence agree to be indicted on all charges in place of Trump.
The former President laid out his unusual request during a recent interview with conservative news network One America News.
“Our country right now is going through trouble like has never been seen before,” Trump said. “It’s unfair, totally unfair to me, but even more importantly, it’s unfair to all of you, and by you, I mean you, the American people. It’s something that frankly should have never happened, and would have never happened if Mike Pence would have simply done the right thing and refused to certify the fraudulent and phony 2020 election results.”
“It’s all Mike Pence’s fault, sadly,” the former President continued. “And because Mike lacked the courage to do that day what he knew what was right but did not do, now we have tens of thousands of loyal Americans who did nothing more than peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard on January 6th currently sitting in dungeons hundreds of miles beneath the surface of Washington DC, all chained to the wall and repeatedly subjected to session after session inside the dreaded Iron Maiden.”
“The Iron Maiden,” Trump attempted to explain. “Many people think it’s just a rock band, but as it turns out, it’s something much, much worse than that. It’s something that’s not very nice. And it’s someplace where George Soros and his racist little minions like Allen Bragg and Letitia Willis and the Unspecial Prosecutor Jack Black want to put me, your favorite President, inside of. The Iron Maiden.”
Trump framed his request to the former Vice President as a way to ultimately right what he views as being wronged by his perceived inactions on the day where hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, many of them shouting threats of violence towards Pence and other elected officials.
“Mike, only you and you alone can fix this,” he said. “You can be the one who goes to that courthouse in Manhattan and say, ‘Take me! Take me instead of this innocent man who has done nothing more than love America like America has never been loved before!’”
Trump even went so far as to invoke Pence’s deeply proclaimed religious beliefs in order to encourage him to take the heat for any charges against him.
“Mike, do you recall the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?” Trump asked. “Do you remember when Pilate offered to release Jesus, but the crowd refused and demanded they release Barnaby instead? Well, this is your chance, Mike. You get to be Barnaby in this story. Except this time, you get be the one who saves your savior. Our savior, the savior of America. Who is me.”
He further attempted to dissuade any fears that Pence might be in danger of conviction if he were to agree to be indicted in Trump’s stead.
“I mean, come on Mike, you’ll be fine,” Trump insisted. “Think about what they are so very falsely and so very wrongly accusing me of. Having sex with some woman, some porn star, some Horseface, who anyone knows I would never find attractive or ever want to have sex with unless I actually did or wanted to. Meanwhile, you’re a guy who refuses to even stand within 20 feet of any woman who isn’t your wife. Once they realize that, they won’t hold you for more than a second, I promise you.”
“Or no more than two to three years, tops,” he quickly added.
Meanwhile, Pence has not reportedly come to any final decision as to Trump’s request.
“The Vice President believes that the potential charges being levied against former President Trump, if in fact true, would represent an unforgivable breach of the public’s trust by the former President and that he should not be afforded any sort of special status or privilege under the law simply because he once held the highest office in the land,” a spokesperson for former Vice President Pence said. “The Vice President also believes that the authorities are subjecting former President Trump to an unfair witch hunt for no reason other than the fact he was once the President and that they really should spend their time and resources on other things instead of needlessly prosecuting him on a mere frivolity.”
The spokesperson continued on by saying Pence will come to a final decision after “praying” on it, and that he currently is in the process of consulting his peers as to what his ultimate course of action should be.
“The Vice President recently sought out former Vice President Quayle for his advice as to this extremely hard and difficult decision,” the spokesperson noted. “He is also seeking the input of several other very prominent Indianans, including basketball legend Larry Bird, Screen Actors Guild Award winning actor and Breaking Bad star Dean Norris, noted singer-songwriter John ‘Cougar’ Mellencamp, and comedian Mike Epps.”
DETAILS AT ELEVEN.
One day--most likely sometime in the next few weeks--there will be breaking news.
We don't know what exact day that will be. Or what time of day it will be.
It could be a matter of just a few days.
It might be a matter of a few weeks.
But I don't foresee it being much longer than that.
Where will this breaking news come from?
Most likely it will be New York.
But it could be out of Georgia.
It probably won't be from Washington, DC. At least not just yet.
When the news first breaks, it will be cryptic.
Maybe we'll first hear about it from a tweet from some reputable journalist.
Or maybe you'll hear about it on a "This just in..." announcement on one of the cable news networks.
It will be hard to believe for any of us when we first hear the news. Because it will be news that we've been waiting to hear for years, only to felt let down time after time, to the point where our cynicism has told us to expect perpetual disappointment.
But as source after source confirms the news, we will come to the realization that this time, it's different.
This time, it's actually real.
No let down this time. No bitter disappointment.
Those who said they expected this news will claim a sense of victory and vindication. Those who thought we'd never hear this news will happily admit they were wrong.
All of us, however, will rejoice. Be amazed. Be astonished. Question whether they are dreaming or now. Reach to the top shelf and find that fine spirit we've been saving for this particular day.
The news will spread rapidly, like wildfire. All over this website. All over the news channels. All over social media.
It will be all-consuming. It will be all we want to talk about.
Because it's been years in the making.
And that day is coming soon. Very soon.
We don't know exactly when, but it is definitely coming.
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