Category Archives: “funny”

Jared Kushner, boy genius

Asked, on his book promotion tour (the self-serving tome is apparently a bestseller on Amazon) whether his father-in-law had won the 2020 election, graceful Jared did this brilliantly original dance (as reported in today’s NY Times, link at bottom):

“I think that there’s different words,” Mr. Kushner told the talk show host Megyn Kelly during a friendly interview on SiriusXM. He added, “I think there’s a whole bunch of different approaches that different people have taken, and different theories.”

Pressed to say whether Mr. Trump lost, Mr. Kushner demurred. “I believe it was a very sloppy election,” he said. “I think that there’s a lot of issues that I think if litigated differently may have had different insights into them.”

Clearly, it was not the election itself, it was the failure to properly litigate the election, that is, the failure to offer any proof of fraud in any court of law that made the real difference into insights that determine what you call it: sloppy, a steal, a mistake, a fuck up, a mirror image of me, myself and the outsized ambitions apertunant thereto.

The Times book reviewer gushed:

“Breaking History” is an earnest and soulless — Kushner looks like a mannequin, and he writes like one — and peculiarly selective appraisal of Donald J. Trump’s term in office. Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on, ad infinitum, to speak about his boyish tinkering (the “mechanic”) with issues he was interested in.

This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th-century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on, and rejoices in, what’s left amid the ashes: the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway and the mailbox. Kushner’s fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog’s eye goo.

link to full review at [1]

On Wednesday, when asked on Fox News if Mr. Trump made a mistake in taking classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, Mr. Kushner stepped carefully.

“President Trump, he governed in a very peculiar way,” he said. “When he had his documents, I’m assuming he did what he thought was appropriate.”

Mr. Kushner has condemned the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, saying on Tuesday, “It just seems like what they keep doing is breaking norms in their attempt to try to get him.”

His father-in-law has been touting his book as a MUST READ. He’s giving it away as a promotion to those who make a certain sized donation to his omnibus Defend the Innocent Trump from unfair partisan persecution PAC fund.

The friendly venues have mostly spared Mr. Kushner tough questions about Mr. Trump’s role during the Jan. 6 attack. His interviewers have also steered clear of asking about how Mr. Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, whom he defends in his book as a reformer on certain topics.

source [below]

Go, Jared.

Go fuck yourself.

Promoting His Memoir, Kushner Offers Tortured Defenses of Trump https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/us/politics/jared-kushner-trump-book.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhkQFUZBCbIRp8_qRmHmfnE2_s-j2XzIG2WVC1CyekPRpSa5kLVIKBkYNh13yieQJUJFo4Tc8FI770VOV1xGU7vq4GYmZ8BLmJsotLjA2lm1NfBDbtgtGK1MTH8eOsnmfixtUzbPjO9C6GOgiYxNU0y98seAFKg3HICwq_AE_ckmYUtmKd8We0pAGsIdyKIvPL3ChRhO9vgbRrU6AQ-W-gxSiiE1JfHqOpGKFMOfAqAGHBv4m8868deMMcUPcv_LB0hfcn9gNYBG22cXFQG6Nxq4PA225KPu8U

[1] Jared Kushner’s ‘Breaking History’ Is a Soulless and Very Selective Memoir https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/books/review-breaking-history-jared-kushner.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhkQFUaBCbfWt8ktVqciObOzaN5jGXzJSuUTzkHz-UOH4-a6gLPbLBua54wwi-bQtJbdr8zQfg4hsluA3tQcSj66J2VhMZCZCwvtYO4Wm5x08LBUb1ioWOvMTHlIqIinODh-hiPOmj1UaHZ1HZwdls185EyZkjqjSJTvtrNG-Nw09V92_4zVNstFXpbOn7877S_AA5-Od6GchjW9gE9PupaUjzTltKZgKkSJEQQURmVCSMivhtvrY9UK9gVP63gLh4_ecGYgr0ZD2dgKInBFIROvEs9zUnYURc6upaakNAx

To write or not to write

I had a girlfriend many years ago, very cute and much younger than me, I was 30 and she was 20. I was the first boyfriend she had who wasn’t a boy and she responded very well to all of my attentions. We had as harmonious a relationship as I could manage at the time.

When she was getting divorced many years later, and needed to be cheered up, encouraged as a desirable woman I suppose, she said to me “if I come to New York will you fuck me?”

My hesitation surely gave away too much, then I told her that I was in a long-term monogamous relationship, sadly, and for some reason my hand wrote on a piece of paper “if I come to New York will you fuck me?”

I folded the paper and put it in my pants pocket and forgot about it. Until weeks later, when it inexplicably showed up on the floor on my side of the bed. Sekhnet picks it up, unfolds it and reads to me “if I come to New York will you fuck me?” I give her a short, sheepish, truthful account of the call. Years later I had dinner with my still very cute younger ex and her very smart, good looking 16-year-old daughter. That was the only time I’ve seen her in all those years that I can recall, except one other time, about fifteen years earlier.

I mentioned to my friend today that there’d been flooding in her area recently and I’d thought of calling her to make sure she was okay. My friend said “and if she said ‘if I come to New York will you fuck me?’“

“I wouldn’t write it down,” I said.

“The heat is building up. The pressure is building up.”

The lawyers Trump is still able to hire filed a unique motion in federal court the other day related to his right to retain government papers after leaving office. The judge gave them a few days to fix their filing, since she was legitimately confused about what they are seeking and why they are seeking it in her federal courtroom.

The 27-page filing is replete with Trump’s typical political bombast, including boasts about the power of the former president’s 2022 campaign endorsements and about the Mar-a-Lago estate itself. But it also confirmed aspects of the timeline related to the Mar-a-Lago search, including the fact that the Justice Department issued two subpoenas prior to the search — one for documents on May 11 and another for security camera footage in late June. . .

. . .“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home. ALL documents have been previously declassified,” Trump declared.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/trump-files-suit-special-master-mar-a-lago-search-00053196

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post clarified that Trump didn’t have his lawyers include that strong paragraph in his motion for a special master:

“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home. ALL documents have been previously declassified,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform soon after the motion was filed. . .

. . .Three days after the raid, on Aug. 11, the former president’s attorneys attempted to convey a message to Attorney General Merrick Garland from Trump during a conversation with Bratt. That message, according to the filing, was:

“President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry.’ The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”

https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/trump-asks-for-special-master-to-go-through-documents-seized-from-mar-a-lago/

You know, as you do when you want to make sure the guy knows it’s a nice little democracy he’s got here and it would be a shame if something happened to it.

States vs. Feds

Right-wing demagogues are making the same point that the Confederates made back when they were defending their constitutional right to hold other people as property and do with them as they pleased. It’s like the goddamn Civil War was never fought, or won by the forces of the Federal Union. Swastikas and Confederate flags, free speech protected under the First and Second Amendments, States Rights, home rule, local sovereignty! Here’s a beautiful short summary of the basic idiocy of the “States’ Rights” position.

Trump’s ongoing threat

New reporting, Trumpie reached out to Merrick Garland to inform him that the country is on fire and wanting to know what he could do to turn down the heat — outside of turning over evidence, being truthful, not doxxing traitors online, or calling on the most violent of his followers to stop threatening violence against Trump’s ever-expanding group. of enemies, the the ones whose home addresses, names of spouses and children and where the kids go to school has been posted on Trump’s Truth Social network.

Trumpie’s larger point is that he controls 90% of the country’s most volatile, unreasonable, violent assholes, and 100% of our enraged racists, and the other side may well have 90% of the more reasonable, less violent citizens, but we can all agree that it would be a shame if anything happened to this great divided burning country, Merrick, my friend. You know what I’m sayin’, Merrick? Merrick?

Trump sends MAGA militia after judge who signed Mar-a-Lago search warrant

When the former president leaked his copy of the search warrant to Breitbart, he left in the names of the two FBI agents who signed and served it and the name of the judge who signed the search warrant, after finding probable cause, based on DOJ’s detailed affidavit setting forth all of the reasons why evidence of a crime was probably at Mar-a-Lago. He fingered these three, and their families, for terrifying, physical retribution, as he does (don’t ask Mike Pence, the question, understanably, gives him indigestion).

The next thing I heard was that there was a huge spike in anti-Semitic chatter in White Christian Nationalist world. Turns out not only is Merrick Garland a Jew, but so, apparently is the judge who signed the search warrant to unleash the lying FBI intent on planting and lying about evidence stolen from Trump’s Palm Beach home and resort. As is universally despised dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

So I did a quick search to confirm that the judge was indeed a Semite, and here are the top search returns. It turns out the judge’s name is Bruce Reinhart (no relation to Django) and the first few hits that come up are “Synagogue of Jewish judge who signed off on FBI search …” (yahoo news), Murdoch’s New York Post headline is next “Trump lawyer calls out judge who approved Mar-a-Lago search warrant for…” then Murdoch’s New York Post connects a few more nefarious dots “Judge who approved raid on Mar-a-Lago once linked to Jeffrey Epstein” (oh God, another Jewish pedophile!) we learned from that blurb that Reinhart had also donated to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Something called JTA’s headline “the judge who signed FBI’s Mar-a-Lago warrant is facing violent…” then we get Fox News, moving in for the kill “Florida judge who signed the search warrant allowing the FBI to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was once linked to Jeffrey Epstein, according to a report.”

Several things become immediately clear when you do this quick Google search. One: the judge is indeed Jewish and there seems to be some concern at the synagogue he belongs to about unhinged men with guns or some other hateful plan arriving for Shabbat services. Two: Trumpworld is on full offense, already setting out (and searching out) the infuriating story of this biased fuck who not only … well, you know! Three, as we all know now, the guy was linked by reports to notorious pedophile, sick, evil bastard and Jew, Jeffrey Epstein.

And, with that, you know, based on reports, the People rest, and let’s make it a completely fair and balanced pogrom this time, shall we? Haha!

Grey Lady breaks more bad news for team Trump

Great reporting, headlined: Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned, with a sub-headline only the NY Times is capable of:

Raising questions, indeed, about precisely how forthcoming Trump’s lawyer signing a false sworn statement was!

Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/us/politics/trump-classified-material-fbi.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhkQFUaACbIRp8_qRmHmfnE2_sgnGL7NG2eTT9Z1OUbAoWMvkLEead5ZtI3mjqRRZlBLLorDrRU_9NoAnZMGUOus4fW39MMOTk0ooa-GTg4hJ7AU-totGXjMTj8dbYnmPjusUrXdTa5D6bU0yYlc15joYB3Ng3_gQx-zabDFO9y2td8zK1hUsg8HWFcEXHM6_r4CBx-O8GEZwXf6GQ2W-JZWTLSlb2M-u5KMVUSWR-dEiQJsStr48hcOdgXIK_1MxUlHcH9ir4SAWFqR5y7sESlbyo8Kx90zFsLYdD8-g

Beautiful bit of poetic justice

Reported by my sister, Amy Goodman:

If Trump is proven to have mishandled classified documents, he could be guilty of a felony. In 2018, then-President Trump signed a bill upgrading the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony, while increasing punishments for those who mishandle classified information.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/12/headlines/wapo_fbi_searched_trumps_residence_for_classified_nuclear_arms_documents

GOP members of House Intelligence Committee call for transparency and accountability for unfair DOJ raid on their boss

The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee held a news conference to challenge the Department of Justice for its decision to use “the most extreme measures” to recover evidence of what a federal judge was convinced is probably related to a federal crime. The committee members, speaking in measured tones, are outraged that the DOJ has not given them an urgent National Security reason for the search and is not immediately releasing the search warrant and inventory, (two items already in Trumpie’s hands and that he could have released at any time, but petty to mention [1]) as well as everything else related to the FBI search. They are united in their measured outrage over this outrageous attack on a man who, they say, has willingly and fully cooperated with every illegal partisan witch hunt against him. They are also troubled by the presence of a possible informant, one they say they are entitled to know the identity of.

Fox News has largely swung their influential allegiance in the 2024 presidential election toward Florida strongman Ron DeathSantis (as he’s called by half of the population of Florida) and away from besieged, compromised, damaged Teflon Don Trump. However, Rupert Murdoch is deeply committed to his far-right worldview, fascism is far preferable to majoritarian tyranny disguised as democracy to a billionaire with Murdoch’s extreme beliefs.

So here’s Fox’s live coverage of the Republican membership of the House Intelligence Committee demanding answers from Merrick Garland and the politicized, highly partisan DOJ. Other Congressional Republicans have already made it clear that when they take control of the House Garland’s going to be on the hot seat along with Biden, Harris, Schiff, Nadler, Schumer, Pelosi, Hillary and all the rest of the scoundrels they oppose for not letting them make America great again. Those Benghazi hearings, and the calls to lock her up related to Hillary Clinton’s emails, they’re promising, are going to look like yer proverbial child’s play compared to what they’re threatening against so-called elected Democrats if they take control of Congress in 2023.

In this news conference they demand answers- – why not a subpoena, why this extreme step? What is the specific urgent National Security reason that could legally justify this extreme step? DOJ, part of the (Unitary) Executive branch is riding roughshod over Congressional oversight by a co-equal branch, WTF? They want the identity of the informant, the spy, (the Rat, in Trump- speak) and they are very serious in demanding all of these answers. Serious as a heart attack.

I made it through the first six minutes, noting the obvious reason for no subpoena, that a subpoena for these exact items has already been defied by the former president, months ago, after many months of negotiation with his lawyers. He is the former president who instructed his loyalists to defy all subpoenas and fight them in court. His third AG, Barr, insisted to Congress that it was reasonable to believe Obama had “spies” in place during the transition, which helps explain why Mike Flynn’s lies to Pence and the FBI about illegal contacts with Russia, and his undisclosed paid work for the Turkish strongman, were “immaterial”. Barr also whipped up baseless fears of massive voting fraud in the 2020 election, before things at the White House finally went off the rails and he had to get the hell out of there to avoid facing criminal charges himself.

The long list of GOP grievances and demands presented today in relation to the FBI search is a tissue of the same stuff, nonetheless interesting to hear them set it out with a straight face, and the great moral indignation which is their hallmark. Their presentation will no doubt be very convincing to millions of “low information voters” who are already upset about what appears to be the brutal, baseless crucifixion of their charismatic, persecuted leader, a man of the people millions of Fox viewers faithfully love.

[1] Garland held a rare press conference yesterday during which he called bullshit on Trump. He announced that DOJ has gone to court seeking judicial permission to release copies of the search warrant and property inventory that Trump already has and is already legally free to release to the public. The federal judge in that case has given Mr Trump until 3:00 p.m. today to either oppose the DOJ or agree to it and allow those two documents to be released to the public, by DOJ.