A Bad Day in MAGA-land

Guilty, Stealing, Lying: All in a Day’s Work for the GOP

There’s more to the story about the Manhattan jury finding former President Donald J. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and awarding her $5 million in damages. 

The federal jury of six men and three women found that Carroll had sufficiently proved that Mr. Trump sexually abused her nearly 30 years ago in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. 

The jury did not find he had raped her, based on Carroll’s testimony that she did not feel penetration and did not see his privates. They felt these statements did not rise to the level of clear and convincing evidence.

The jury took three hours to answer 10 questions posed by the judge regarding evidence presented during the trial. They also decided the former President defamed Carroll by posting a statement on his Truth Social platform calling her case “a complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.” 

Carroll didn't stop to talk as she left the courthouse, but later released a statement saying, "I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back. Today, the world finally knows the truth."

There are nineteen women who have credibly come forward to claim they’d been sexually assaulted by Trump, but this is an actual verdict. In a normal world, there would be political consequences. In this instance he and his supporters have asserted the jury’s finding was “a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt of all time." 

His lawyer said he intended to appeal.

Having delivered a verdict, the jury wasn’t off the hook as Heather Cox Richardson reported:

• Also, strikingly, at the end of the trial, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan advised the jurors not to identify themselves—“not now and not for a long time”—out of concerns for their safety. National security analyst Juliette Kayyem reported the judge’s warning and noted that “Trump’s strongest legacy will always be violence as an extension of our democratic processes.” Legal analyst Joyce White Vance added, “It’s a remarkable thing when jurors have to be cautioned that revealing their identities could put them at risk...when the defendant was the former president of the United States.”

• Should Trump get the Republican nomination—and right now he is the frontrunner—the Republican Party will have nominated for the presidency a man a jury found liable for sexual assault and defamation, and against whose followers a judge had to warn a jury to take precautions.

• It’s not a great look.

CNN and other networks carried interviews with former White House communications director Stephanie Grisham, repeating allegations made in a tell-all book about Trump’s sexist and predatory behavior in the oval office. 

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville said the jury’s finding "makes me want to vote for him twice." Wow, it’s the GOP trifecta: misogyny, violence against women, and voter fraud. 

I have to agree that Trump being held liable for sexual abuse and defamation will not change a single Republican vote. The modern day GOP has convincingly made the case that they will support sexual predators if those men promise to use power to take away rights from women.

Support for the former President is mostly about feelings, not facts. While a ‘mere woman’s’ accusations won’t change their stances, a continuous cacophony of bad news might just make some voters decide Trump’s a distraction.

For Instance:

• He’s fighting a New York criminal case related to hush money payments made to a porn actor. The state attorney general has sued him, his family and his business over alleged financial wrongdoing.

• Trump is also contending with investigations into his possible mishandling of classified documents, his actions after the 2020 election and his activities during the insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump denies wrongdoing in all of those matters.

Finally, the Federal Election Commission wants to know about 1450+pages of  “Apparent Impermissible, Excessive, and Prohibited Contributions” to Trump’s Political Action Committee in the run up to the 2024 election. 

In 2016, the FEC’s investigation revealing 11,000+ hinky political contributions totaling more than $1.3 million was dismissed by its GOP commissioner. Now, the FEC is a bi-partisan entity, headed by a Biden nominee. 

The former President has a one hour “town hall” on CNN tonight. My over/under on the number of lies told stands at 50.

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Republicans in the House of Representatives are headed toward a historic confrontation as they’re holding the national debt ceiling hostage, demanding a budget for next year that makes broad cuts in services and pensions for much of the population.

Their hostage taking concerns paying for a budget already passed by congress and signed by the president. Nobody knows what the consequences will be if they succeed, but nobody is predicting an actual benefit for the country. In other words, it’s all pain and no gain, which sums up so many Republican proposals these days.

The House GOP isn’t unified on this topic being pushed by the far right, and Speaker McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to pull it off. Yet.

This situation is more concerning because of the arrest and indictment of NY District 3 Republican George Santos. He’s facing a total of thirteen separate charges, including seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

Things look bad for Santos’ support staff. From CNN:

• A spokeswoman for Santos, Naysa Woomer, would not respond to shouted questions from reporters Tuesday afternoon and abruptly departed the congressman’s DC office with her backpack when asked about the federal charges against him. Prior to her departure from the office, CNN witnessed three staffers for Santos abruptly depart with their bags. They wouldn’t talk when pressed for comment.

If nothing else, Santos’ presence on the House floor was proof that there is no bottom for the GOP when it comes to ethics, truth, and fiscal honesty. McCarthy needed (and still needs) his vote, and therefore a bucket of piss calling itself a Republican would have sufficed.

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News from Elsewhere That Showed Up on My Desk Today 

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"Women's Bill of Rights" created by secretive group that opposes women's rights Via Popular Information.

• The group’s leadership has also historically had a cozy relationship with the Koch network. Former IWF president and CEO Nancy Pfotenhauer, for instance, was once “Koch Industries’ top lobbyist in DC” and managed the company’s PAC activities. 

• In 2003, IWF announced that it would be formally partnering with the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, sharing “staff and resources.”

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RIP Metaverse: An obituary for the latest fad to join the tech graveyard Via Business Insider. It looks like we won’t be wearing those clunky eye-boxes, after all.

• The inability to define the Metaverse in any meaningful way didn't get in the way of its ascension to the top of the business world. In the months following the Meta announcement, it seemed that every company had a Metaverse product on offer, despite it not being obvious what it was or why they should.

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How can L.A. stop traffic deaths? Let civilians enforce traffic violations, study says Via the Los Angeles Times. I can’t wait for the complaints from the cult of cars faithful.

• Most traffic enforcement in Los Angeles should be done by civilian workers, but only in tandem with major infrastructure upgrades that improve safety along city streets that are among the nation’s deadliest.

• Those are the conclusions of a long-delayed report from the city transportation department that has yet to be released. The Times reviewed a draft of the document, which is being produced by an outside firm and has been in the works for nearly three years, since the City Council first raised the prospect of removing traffic duties from the Los Angeles Police Department.

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