Trump's mug shot pose meant to hide his chins. Who said it first?

Keith Olbermann mentioned this in one of his latest blog posts. I think it was Lawrence O’Donnell who got close during MSNBC’s (shameful OJ style coverage) arrest parade, when he said that Trump had practiced that pose for hours before leaving New Jersey for processing. Someone else on the panel may have gone there. I suspect others have picked up on this and talked about it.

I think the truth is evident: Trump struck that pose not to show what a boss he is, but to hide his many chins. He’s that narcissistic, after all. (215 my ass.)

There's something weird about the shooting in Utah

All the channels and all the news sites have it this way +- : ‘FBI shoots and kills man in Utah who threatened Biden’.

What we’re not seeing is any justification for the shooting. Yeah, he made threats. But did the guy resist when the FBI tried to serve the search warrant? Did he appear at the door with a gun? Why was he shot? What actually happened?

Right now, absent any other explanation, it’s easy to imagine the cult seeing the headlines and the quick analysis and turning it into some kind of Waco thing. We sure don’t need that at this fraught moment.

But it’s weird that there is no explanation forthcoming. Conspiracy theories rush in to take the place of real news

Theories like, the guy didn’t resist. He was executed.
Like, the guy resisted, but MAGA elements in the FBI are withholding the info to give time for inflammatory theories to develop.

I don’t know what’s going on but I hope that by the time I post this a reasonable explanation is revealed.

Make TFG show up each time so America gets bored with seeing him in court

Keith Olbermann made a good point the other day that by the time TFGs second big indictment came down it didn’t get quite as much attention as the first one. There were fewer demonstrators on hand at the court house is just one example.

Many worry that violence will break out if TFG is convicted, or sent to jail, or—well, there are many circumstances they claim will result in violence from his cult. I’m suggesting that if each judge requires TFG to show up to each of the appropriate proceedings America will get used to him being entangled in the justice system. The motorcade. The brief glimpses entering and exiting the courthouse. The same familiar rant in front of the first camera he sees. If (and hopefully when) the various violence begetting circumstances occur, most of his short-attention-span cultists will have tuned out and miss the news. They’ll be harder to organize and less enthusiastic because the novelty is gone, and much of the ginned up outrage with it.

The 'weaponizing the justice system' narrative is

featuring at least as prominently as Trump’s betrayal of the troops, national security, and our safety. If the narrative isn’t refocused from time to time on to Trumps crimes, it will eventually win out.

I can see why Biden, his staff, and the DNC ought to stay out of it, but other prominent Dems ought to speak out.

Republicans have always portrayed themselves as the national security party. This is our chance to take that from them.

Democrats silent again, losing the messaging war

A surprising number of prominent Republican are expressing disappointment, disapproval, even outrage to find in his indictments that Trump has put the military, our espionage agents, and the rest of us at risk by stealing, then leaving those classified, compartmentalized documents lying around where anyone could have seen them. One thing I’m not hearing is prominent Democratic voices expressing the appropriate level of outrage that they should be expressing. Loudly. With sound and fury!

Republicans are left to the field making the case that this isn’t about treason, or reckless disregard for the safer of our troops and the nation, it’s about politicization of the DOJ, and what about Hillary, Hunter and Joe Biden.

It’s working. You certainly see and hear more discussion about that than what a dangerous, criminal fuck up Trump is. If Democrats stay silent most mainstream media discussion will devolve into the politicization narrative.

Whether Trump is convicted or not the real story here is how Trump failed the country. How Trump failed in his duty to keep us all safe.

Democrats-besides the folks here on DU—should be shouting from the rooftops about this stuff. They’re not. WTF?

Romney is--hate to say it--right

Tucker Carlson will run for President

Tucker’s recently released video signals the start of his Presidential campaign. Using new, ‘reasonable’ language, he has announced a new, more moderate personae, one that will be more acceptable to more people during a run for President.

He’s the perfect Republican candidate for this time. He is a smarter, more calculating version of Donald Trump. He’s already proven his racist, misogynist, fascist credentials and brings with him name recognition and a devoted following. He can make a winking move toward the middle that won’t fool or turn off his extremist admirers. To any remaining Republican moderates and other center isn’t/independents he can assert that his TV persona was just an entertaining act. His new presentability and clear fascist core beliefs will endear him to the oligarchs who above all want to back a candidate who can win.

Just stop for a moment and compare him to bloated, ranting, glowering Trump and ham-fisted-fascist, bobble headed, personality-minus Ron DeSantis. Who would you choose if those three were the only ones running? And make no mistake, for a large part of the country, he’s everything the anybody-but-a-Democrat candidate are looking for.

Tucker lost his Fox podium but there is an easy segue to an even bigger one, to teleprompter campaign stages, and debate stages. He hasn’t had much of a chance to soak up the adulation of live crowds, but once he gets a tase at campaign rally’s he’ll love it a blossom.

Tucker Carlson is running for President. The only question is, when will he announce? The money men and king makers are lighting up his phones at this moment. The PACs are being formed, the logos proposed. It’s all happening in the background—perhaps uncoordinated at the moment—but it’s happening.

Oh, and don’t imagine for a moment that he’ll be Trumps VP choice. He hates Trump. He sees him self immolating. He believes he needn’t be second fiddle to any man, much less that one, and would never accept the spot. And Trump, who holds grudges and won’t let anybody stand in his limelight, would never take him on.

Tucker is running. Mark my words.

Insurrectionist felon fires at cops is captured alive. Black kid knocks on wrong door...

This story is all to familiar. The white guy is given all the time in the world to surrender to the cops he actually shot at when they came to his house. In a similar incident, the black guy who appears at a door bearing a legal weapon when cops arrived unannounced at his house—in the dark middle of the night—plug him instantly and repeatedly. He dies. Executed with no process at all, due or otherwise.

A kid drives over to pick up his siblings and gets the wrong house. Nobody answers. He probably figures his siblings are pranking him so he tries the door. The resident opens the door and shoots him. Then he steps out and shoots him again! The white resident gets the benefit of ‘stand your ground’ laws. The black kid gets criticized for trying the door—if that happened at all. And some of those defending the resident wonder why the parents were’t picking up the kid. Hell, they’d have been shot too!

OK. I may be conflating police violence with racist stand your ground laws, but fucking hell!

Fox comes out smelling like a rose!

Yes. Fox has to pay some $787 million dollars to Dominion. That appears to be all. No on air apologies, no on air mea cultus, Nothing but an arcane court filing that says that Fox and Dominion have agreed to a settlement. That settlement refers to a previous court ruling that concluded that Fox aired lies.The current settlement, as far as I know, doesn’t include any such admission or declaration

Fox’s revenue in 2022 was almost $14 billion. It’s net revenue, was $1.4 billion. So let’s see—using my public school math—the settlement is barely half of just one year’s net profits. And this allows Fox to put all this bad press behind it. No testimony from Tucker, Rudy, whoever. Not even a word as part of this settlement from Rupert. The only admission by Fox in the final ruling is that they “acknowledge certain claims about Dominion were false.”

Fox now gets to claim that they didn’t lie about the efficacy of the election. ‘Yeah. We made some mistakes about Dominionbut we were right all along about all the rest! Fox gets to continue to lie about it or any damn thing that they want. And if they’ve learned anything, it’s that they need to turn even further to the right in order to maintain their profitability. I expect that effort to begin tonight.

I don’t watch Tucker, but I bet he goes on tonight to talk about what a railroad job the whole Dominion case was. And that even though Fox has to pay $780 million, they are the victim. That they will continue to hold the deep state and Democrats to account.

As I was writing this I was watching Lawerrence O’Donell. He was crowing about what a huge loss this is for Rupert Murdoch. Sorry Larry. Lame reading. It’s the kind of reading that will probably play well at barbecues in the Hampton, but it missing the more important point: Murdoch and Fox get to continue business as usual. Fox’s only on-air comment was the smallest of mentions on Howard Kurtz’s Fox show. We won’t hear more friom Fox. Inside the progressive media bubble, it’s a win. Elsewhere, it’s a nothing burger. Or worse, grist for the crackpot conservative mill.

Rupert could write a check for the settlement amount today and not notice it. But he won’t have to. FoxCorp (and I realize that there have been arcane manipulations in the ownership/structure of FoxCorp) will pay the fee, potentially reducing their profitability by about 50% of one years net profit. Big Fing deal! Even if Smartmatic wipes out Fox’s net for a whole year, it’s future prospects are bright! But the prospects for continued democracy are dim.

So you can see I’m disappointed about how this has played out (*particularly because in a previous post I bet that Fox would settle overnight and if they did, I’d get to day-drink today. Missed it by hours and instead had brutal irrigation related shovel work to do).

An additional comment/fear. This is a settlement. Fox is buying something from Dominion, the dismissal of a civil lawsuit and it’s potential financial liability. That sounds like a deductible business expense. It seems to me, and I’m only a wage-earner tax-structure victim so I only know about taxes what I’ve learned ab out suffering through my own returns over the statements, that in the end, taxpayers are going to shoulder some of the burden.

Your guess? Fox settles or trial proceeds?

I’m guessing Fox settles before the trial starts. I get no points if they settle shortly after it starts. I could be proved wrong by the time I wake up in the morning. But if I’m right, I’m day drinking tomorrow.

What’s your guess? (And what do you win if you’re right)?