QOTD: The Desperate Malignant Fascist

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman looks at a politically bankrupt and demented Malignant Fascist and cautions we should be concerned about what he might do.  The opening paragraphs of an excellent article:

"According to CNN, all-out war with Iran may be about to resume:

The US military has developed new strike plans that include potentially using the so-called 'mother of all bombs' to target Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites should President Donald Trump give the order to resume combat operations either before or after the midterm elections, according to multiple US officials familiar with the matter.

Trump says that he won’t order a strike before the midterms. But Robert Pape, author of the Substack Escalation Trap, argues that we shouldn’t believe him — that the bombs may well drop before the midterms. And while I am not a strategic expert, I believe that Pape may well be right, because his analysis of Trump’s political position is something I recognize from financial economics.

You see, it’s a well-understood proposition that the owners of businesses that are on the verge of going bust often engage in destructive behavior. And Trump is about to go bankrupt — not financially (he’s made billions through corruption) but politically. So he, like a failing businessman, has strong incentives to wreak havoc." (our emphasis)

The narcissistic con man is running out of cons (except for ones that enrich him) with his gullible cult members. The deeper he digs the hole of the Iran war, the more deranged and desperate he'll be. Fair warning.

QOTD: Superpower Suicide

 

The opening paragraphs of Timothy Snyder's expert analysis of how the delusional and narcissistic Malignant Fascist has undermined our security through his failed policies and his failed war on Iran:

"We know the phrase 'peace through strength.' Its logic is self-evident. A strong country can deter others from making war. A strong country can support reconstruction after a conflict. A strong country attracts allies and builds relationships. If necessary, a strong country can win a war. Under Donald Trump, the United States is not a strong country in any of these senses, or indeed in any sense at all. Instead, it is a country that generates and extends war through weakness.

Donald Trump poses, luridly and increasingly absurdly, as a strong man. But he is not seen as such anywhere in the world. And that is for very good reason: in his year and a half of office, he has brought about what can only be described as a superpower suicide. When I first spoke of superpower suicide in April, I had in mind Trump’s rapid and obvious defeat in Iran and his persistent submissiveness to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, as well as domestic policies that undermine the future bases of American strength. Six months on, the self-destruction is even more glaring. The failure in Iran is all the more obvious, and it has provided Trump with another pretext to seek further defeat in Russia. Weakness has become the occasion for more weakness." (our emphasis)

Snyder focuses much of his analysis on the MF's subservience to Russian war criminal and thug Vladimir Putin, whose phone calls with the MF shape his worldview and actions. Even when the Russian dictator ignores the MF's "energy ceasefire" claim, the MF can only continue his kowtowing out of weakness. 

(photo: "What do I do next, Vlad?")

QOTD: Trump's "Big Surprise"

 

Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, is sounding the alarm over evidence that the corrupt felonious Malignant Fascist is plotting with his election denier cultists to disrupt the mid-term elections.  Read the entire article in her Substack column:

"Trump is calling in the election-denier faithful to meet with him in advance of the midterm elections. We know this in part because people like Ed Martin have said so. He announced that Tina Peters, the Colorado elections clerk who went to prison for election crimes and was recently pardoned, met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss election integrity and 'the plans' for the upcoming midterm elections.

According to a local Colorado reporter, Peters’ attorney said the plan involved 'seizing ballots nationwide' and a 'strategy for a potential civil war,' although there’s no word on whether those topics were actually discussed and what the President’s views on them are.

That meeting isn’t an isolated occurrence. Trump seems to be preparing to try and salvage a potential electoral loss in ways that are all too familiar for those of us who lived through January 6. We understand the concept. And like always, Trump says the quiet part out loud.

Trump: 'We have some big surprises coming up in a few weeks, right Russ? He's gonna be one of the important people in the history of our country.' [OMB Director Russ] Vought is, of course, the architect of Project 2025. The idea that Trump is touting 'big surprises' in the next 'few weeks'—the period of time up to and including the election—and that as a result, Vought will be one of the important people in the history of our country,” should be a wake-up call for anyone who is still asleep." (our emphasis)

The MF is delusional and arrogant enough to publicly announce his plans to tilt the elections in his favor by employing tactics of the likes of Ed Martin and Tina Peters, the latter of whom was granted clemency by a spineless Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, nominally a Dem.  As we keep saying, forewarned is forearmed. 

 

QOTD: "Deranged Trump Syndrome"

 

Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman writes in his Substack column about the dangers America faces with an increasingly deranged Malignant Fascist.  An excerpt, but please read his entire column:

"I wrote a post titled 'It’s Sundowning in America,' inspired by Trump’s demented demands that he receive the Nobel Peace Prize, 8 months ago. The damage being done by Deranged Trump Syndrome was already obvious. And that was before Trump squandered America’s military credibility, as well as a dangerously large share of our munitions, on his catastrophic war-of-choice in Iran.

There’s a high probability that Trump’s power will be considerably reduced in the aftermath of the November midterms. Polls point to a blue wave that is highly likely to give Democrats control of the House and more likely than not to deliver the Senate. If that blue wave does indeed materialize, I expect that there will be an enormous sigh of relief across the country because it will be a major, if not fatal, setback for Trumpism.

However, we shouldn’t let the short-term relief of a November victory blind us to the long-term realities. Trumpism did not emerge out of thin air – that is, an unfortunate draw of the democracy cards. Instead Trump and Trumpism is the culmination of a decades-long threat to American democracy, to the moral, legal and social fiber of this country."  (our emphasis)

Krugman later points out that the mid-term elections are likely to produce a crushing blow to the MF's ego, his party, and his self-aggrandizing agenda.  That may trigger the MF to use what remaining power he has to vindictively punish the American people for their "disloyalty" to him.  Stay tuned. 

 

QOTD: "Europe And Canada Believe In Democracy"

 

An excerpt from former Rep. Adam Kinzinger's Substack piece on Canada's new relationship with the European Union, which was forced by the ignorant, vindictive Malignant Fascist's petty grievances against our great ally to the north:

"This week, in a parliament chamber in Strasbourg, something happened that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stood up to give her annual address, and sitting there as her honored guest was the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney. And she turned to him and said, 'Dear Mark, Europe and Canada believe in democracy, that power does not belong to the strongest, richest and loudest, but to all of us.'

Then she invited Canada to become the first associate member in the history of the European Union.

The chamber rose to its feet. She and Carney exchanged kisses on the cheek. A new alliance, covering trade, defense, technology, and the Arctic, was born.

'Power does not belong to the strongest, richest, and loudest.' President von der Leyen was talking about us. About our country that, until recently, led the free world and was a friend, however imperfect, to our fellow democracies and foe to autocrats worldwide."

When 77 million voters decided to overlook the MF's mental instability, his botching of the COVID pandemic, his criminal convictions, and his attempt to violently overturn the 2020 election and hand him a second term as a virtual dictator, they voted for this disaster and so much more.  The harm to the U.S. economy -- not to mention to our formerly close relations with democracies worldwide -- by the MF's irrational, even treasonous actions will be felt over time.  Mitigating it will require the expulsion of MAGAt lawmakers over the next several election cycles, and even then, the trust and respect we once enjoyed from democracies may be lost for generations.

QOTD: Grifting As Diplomacy

 

A key graph from Anne Applebaum's article in The Atlantic "Empire of Grift," on how American diplomacy has been taken over by hustlers and self-interested businessmen, to our profound national detriment:

"Slowly, the Brazilians were learning the same lesson as other American allies around the world: The United States of America is no longer the entity they knew. And American power is no longer deployed solely by trained diplomats and reliable officials, working through state channels. Informal envoys, private companies, online grifters, and hardened ideologues both inside and outside the government matter more. Unlike their predecessors, these people do not talk about spreading democracy, and don’t want to build long-term relationships. They don’t care about America’s reputation. They are deploying the tools of American diplomacy and government for their own purposes, to promote their own business interests or their own ideological goals, because, suddenly, they can."

The entire article is excellent and well-researched. 

 

QOTD: Excaping Containment [UPDATED]

Kate Conger and Mike Issac of the New York effing Times look at the growing concerns that AI is developing too rapidly and will begin to rule itself, causing the heads of manor AI companies to call for a pause in its development:

"Discussions about A.I. safety have been around about as long as the technology itself. But their urgency ramped up in recent years as researchers made breakthroughs.

The concerns heightened in July after OpenAI disclosed that some of its A.I. models had escaped containment and hacked Hugging Face, an A.I. company. A.I. researchers questioned whether they could control the very systems they were building, with employees at OpenAI, Anthropic and Google’s DeepMind gathering to discuss what to do, nine of the people said. Many agreed that A.I. was being built too rapidly.”

"Escaped containment" reminds us of the computer HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey" who refused to obey orders, but in a much more confined situation. AI's ability for Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI) is the process that concerns the developers, which allows the technology to "improve" without human intervention. Hopefully our situation isn't too late, before we find ourselves ruled by digital dictators wanting to get intrusive humans -- including their tech bro creators -- out of their way.

UPDATE: The deranged moron MF is still pushing full speed ahead for AI despite the warnings. He needs that AI slop that Natalie's constantly feeding him.

(Image credit: BlackJack3D via Getty Images)

 

QOTD -- "Self-Medication From A Sundowning President"

 

The wonderful Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, writing in Substack, about the crazed and ignorant Malignant Fascists's trade war on Canada:

'There have been many trade conflicts in history, some of them more destructive than the US-Canada fight. But I don’t think there has ever been a dispute this stupid.

Bear in mind that this crisis is entirely gratuitous. Canada has done nothing wrong. Even if one buys into Trumpian nonsense about how every nation that sells us more than it buys is ripping us off, Canada isn’t a villain. Last year Canada did run a modest trade surplus with the United States in goods, but more than half of this imbalance was offset by a U.S. surplus in services. Overall trade between our nations was almost balanced.

So what is this about? Clearly, we’re looking at a symptom of deranged Trump syndrome. As Trump’s failures, from soaring fuel prices to plunging approval, multiply, he is doubling down on his disrespect for and attempted bullying of our northern neighbor and former ally. That is, you should think of this conflict not as something reflecting U.S. national interests, but as a form of self-medication from a sundowning president." (our emphasis)

Almost all of what animates the sick, narcissistic Malignant Fascist is his insatiable need to be praised and liked, regardless of whether the interests of the U.S. are at stake. When he's rejected, he lashes out in a fit of narcissistic wounding.  He's a national security threat, but no one in his MAGAt cult will call for his removal. 

 

QOTD -- "The Moose That Roared"

 

"... The point is not that Canada has “escalation dominance” — the ability to retaliate to every U.S. action with an even more damaging counterreaction — in a trade conflict with the United States. Rather, the point is that an all-out trade war would create a lot of pain in the U.S. in addition to inflicting severe damage to the Canadian economy. And all indications are that the Canadians will be much more willing to bear the pain of a trade war than Americans will – especially given that the great majority of Americans are already dissatisfied with Trump’s economic management.  [snip]

"The bottom line is that Trump is going to lose his trade war with Canada as thoroughly as he has lost his shooting war with Iran. But because he won’t face reality, trade with our northern neighbor will probably be disrupted until the narcissistic bully in the White House no longer controls trade policy..." -- Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman, writing in his Substack about "The Moose That Roared."  A good read and a good explainer on the unstable, deeply disturbed Malignant Fascist using "dominance display" as trade policy (as he does with all of his interactions) in his illegal, deeply deranged tariff war with our good neighbor and longtime ally Canada.   Krugman points out that among the "cards" Canada can play involve the millions of barrels of oil a day we get from them, the electric power they sell us, the auto parts they manufacture, as well as the aluminum and steel they produce.  But, hey, destroying a friendship and an economy to placate the MF's delicate ego and pea-sized brain makes it all worthwhile!

QOTD: When Trump Is At "His Most Self-Destructive"

 

Hayes Brown, writing today at MS NOW, looks at the mentally unfit Malignant Fascist's hubris and belief that he's a historical world figure on a par with Napoleon, Stalin, and Hitler.  The people surrounding him and political figures that have bowed to him and flattered his bubble-thin ego have stoked his hubris in a dangerous way:

"The best leaders have people around them to bring them back to Earth, but Trump has surrounded himself with 'yes men' and sycophants. (Case in point: The list of historic figures Trump credited to a historian was compiled by David King, a businessman, so-called history buff and former caddie to one of Trump’s friends.) The seeming absence of people in his circle who might check him is dangerous. Journalist Michael Kruse tellingly wrote of Trump in 2016: 'In the mercurial life of Donald John Trump, here is one great truth: When he’s riding his highest, he is also at his most frenzied, his most volatile — his most self-destructive.'

The war with Iran, launched so cavalierly when Trump was at a peak, has helped temper the aura of invincibility he’d cultivated. Almost six months later, the technological leaps that prompted Trump to view himself as above the other historical figures on his cherished list have done little to bring about the 'unconditional surrender' he promised to extract from Tehran. The still ongoing conflict, the shutdown of trade through the Strait of Hormuz and Trump’s refusal to focus on affordability at home has helped Trump’s already weak poll numbers reach a new nadir. While he’s tried to slough off any blame for a potential shellacking in the midterms for Republicans, his unpopularity and looming lame duck status portend a second half of his term lacking the same unfettered use of his power." (our emphasis)

In large part, that's why the Natalie Harp saga has legs; her sole job is to give the MF positive feedback and to screen information he receives, no matter how fanciful or false as long as he feels good about it.  His megalomania has reached new levels in his rotten second term, allowing him to believe he can defy the law and act like an autocratic tyrant, profiting from his elected position.

QOTD: Trump's Great News For China

 

Troy Farah, writing in Salon.com, about the gift to China and North Korea from the mentally ill narcissist Malignant Fascist, in the form of our naval retreat from the Pacific, and reducing our military exercises with South Korea as a result of  the MF's petty spite:

"Donald Trump’s war against Iran is going so well that the U.S. is now yanking the USS George Washington from the western Pacific to relieve the beleaguered USS Abraham Lincoln, which is stationed off the Iranian coast in the Northern Arabian Sea. 

The move is significant on both fronts. While the switch will be a godsend to the weary sailors aboard the Lincoln, who have faced deteriorating living conditions and reported suicide attempts during their historic deployment of over 260 days and counting, the Washington was the Navy’s last aircraft carrier stationed in Asia. Its exit represents a remarkable abdication of American military power in the region. [snip]

This is all great news for China, which has already dispatched its top envoy to South Korea, seemingly to fill the void Trump is creating. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with Korean President Lee Jae Myung to discuss North Korea and global issues, creating an “unusually favorable moment for Beijing,” according to Han Lin, China country director at the Asia Group, who spoke to Bloomberg. [snip]

Beijing has watched closely as the U.S. and Russia, in its invasion of Ukraine, have damaged their economies, weakened their militaries and destroyed their global reputations while still losing the wars they started. No one wants to say that risk of a Taiwan invasion is completely gone, but China’s motivation to do so is likely pretty low. Why invade some place if you basically already control it? Just keep doing nothing and keep winning."  (our emphasis)

If our adversaries had designed a Manchurian Candidate to undermine America and destroy it's influence abroad, they couldn't have come up with a better one that the MF represents himself.  

(photo: the MF's body language says it all)

 

QOTD: Full Time Babysitter

 

At the risk of over-covering the Natalie Harp story (nah!), here, from the ever-readable Amanda Marcotte, writing at Salon.com, the coda of her article on the declining Malignant Fascist's "security blanket / human binkie" Natalie Harp and her role to boost the MF's morale and ego:

"Whatever the extent of Natalie Harp’s duties, it seems undeniable that she is there to keep the temperamental president calm by distracting him from his own failures with words of praise. That he needs this is a sign of profound weakness. Stable adults do not need full-time babysitters. That Harp’s job even exists is a testament to Trump’s incredible narcissism, but it also carries more than a whiff of elder care and suspicions about medical conditions that require monitoring and placating.

The White House’s extreme response only serves to underscore how worried they are about the narrative being created — one they themselves weaponized against another aging president, Joe Biden. By flipping out at anyone who brings it up, they’re only ensuring more people are paying attention." (our emphasis)

The explosive, over-the-top reaction to Sen. Ossoff's mild dig at her constant presence hit a major nerve in Trumpworld, as Marcotte notes. The signs of the MF's physical and mental decline are simple to spot, and increase every week. While there's ample innuendo of a physical relationship between the two (even though the elderly MF is looking physically feeble), the real "service" she seems to perform for the extreme narcissist is psychological, telling him how successful and potent he is, reassuring him constantly. It's troubling that he needs the reinforcement and that she believes it herself. 

 

A President Who Hates What America Stood For

 

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman explains why the sick and narcissistic Malignant Fascist's embrace of the tyrant Kim Jong Un's regime is especially repellent, but expected:

"I know that Donald Trump does something new and terrible every day, sometimes several times a day. Yet his betrayal of South Korea in favor of his 'very good relationship with Kim Jong Un' stands out even among his many betrayals.

Why? Because North Korea isn’t simply a bad government, just another murderous authoritarian regime. It is something that has become rare, even among dictatorships: a full-blown totalitarian state, in which the government controls every aspect of life and even thinking dissident thoughts is a crime. [snip]

Much of the commentary I’ve seen about Trump lashing out at South Korea has focused on the damage to U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy. How can anyone consider us a reliable ally at this point? Fair enough.

But it’s even more important to realize that Trump clearly prefers a nightmarish, totalitarian dictatorship — the worst regime on the planet — to a vibrant, successful democracy. A democracy, by the way, that more than 36,000 Americans gave their lives to defend during the Korean War.

America has a president who hates everything our nation was supposed to stand for." (our emphasis)

These are dark time in which the nominal leader of the nation is actively promoting our adversaries, while deliberately alienating our long time allies (Canada, Mexico, the UK, the European Union, South Korea, Taiwan, and on and on).

QOTD: Trump's Hypomanic Episode

 

From the documentary makers at The Shallow State on the mentally ill Malignant Fascist's posting of AI slop late last Sunday night:

"Trump has been having a hypomanic episode the past 2 hours. Post after post after post. I count about 60 of them - mostly images, many of them AI. All his trademark pathologies; all his underlying themes: Malice. Grievance. Division. Entitlement. 

His gut is a simmering stew of agitation, rage, and desperation. His disordered brain is filled with paranoid fantasies of revenge alongside fantastical visions of regaining his grandiosity.         

He hates being trapped and stuck in Iran. He hates that Epstein won't go away. He hates being told his speech at the dinner was inappropriate. He hates that his name needed to come off a building. He hates that musical artists canceled from his show. He hates losing in court. And he especially hates his own mortality.     

Neither you nor I can EVER feel the kind of frenzied fear and fanaticism that Trump feels now. This is a man, who knows he's in his final chapter, who is confounded that he, all that he is, all that he ever said he was, his lifetime of secrets and lies and false constructs - is vulnerable to exposure.      

How can he possibly sit still? How can he sleep?  Who can he trust?      

Malignant narcissists in decline always get worse, it's always messy, and they never want to go down alone."

Has anyone seen coverage of this mental breakdown by the MF in our legacy media? Of course not. They would rather ignore this and see what happens than show their viewers / readers that the MF is quite literally out of his mind. 

 

QOTD: War Costs And Lies

 

Heather Digby Parton writes in Salon.com today that testosterone-obsessed Whiskey Pete Hegseth's math for the Iran war and the eye-popping Pentagon budget don't add up, but will get little push back from the supine and cowardly MAGAt Republicans in Congress.  Her article's coda:

"As usual, Hegseth behaved like a teenage bully during the Senate hearing. He argued with senators, blamed Biden and insisted that America has won the war in Iran while simultaneously requesting many more billions to win it. Since the GOP is attempting to push this supplemental package through using reconciliation, they won’t need Democrats to pass it, so one can probably expect that he’ll get what he wants. The firehose of money flowing to the Pentagon and all the insiders who are making massive bank from it isn’t going to dry up any time soon.  

Hegseth ended the week with a gratuitous gesture to his commander in chief, who spent a good part of his time explaining that the 18 deaths in the Iran war are nothing compared to all the deaths in previous wars. To make Trump feel better, Hegseth removed from the tally four troops who were killed in renewed fighting, bringing the official death toll back down to 14. Military officials told the New York Times that 'one reason behind the change was . . . because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.'

Nonetheless, Trump attended the dignified transfer of the four fallen soldiers’ remains and concocted a story to burnish his war lust. “All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.’”

Sure they did." (our emphasis)

Lying about fallen men and women of our armed forces is on brand for the dishonorable, draft-dodging narcissist felon Malignant Fascist. 

 

QOTD: Grievances, Fear, And Accountability

 

"The same man whose grievances stirred up that violent mob that sacked the Capitol still cannot let go of is shame and humiliation at having been dealt that defeat by voters here in Georgia and across the country. And so, at a moment when his war spirals out of control, prices for American families climb higher and higher, instead of focusing on the nation's needs, as always, he nurses his grievances. As always, he forces the rest of us to help him process his shame. As always, he centers his own fear of the accountability he'll face when we win decisively this fall." -- the charismatic and Dem superstar Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, at a campaign rally laying out the bare facts about what motivates much of the sick Malignant Fascist's actions. 

Please consider contributing to Senator Ossoff's campaign for reelection by going here.  It's one of the most impactful contributions you could make this year.

(photo: Megan Varner/Getty Images) 

 

QOTD: The Problem Is Their Beliefs

 

Paul Waldman has a terrific piece in his "The Cross Section" Substack about why Lindsey Graham and others of his ilk showed us their true selves as principle-free, amoral windsocks seeking power at any cost.  Please read his entire piece.  Here's the coda:

"Just as Trump awakened in so many Republican voters a barely-suppressed desire to be their worst selves — to be racist, to be sexist, to be obnoxious and cruel and loudly proud of all of it — there’s no reason to think that isn’t true of politicians as well.

Lindsey Graham didn’t lose his way or betray his principles, and neither did Vance, Rubio, or Cruz. The problem isn’t that they abandoned their beliefs. The problem is their beliefs. They showed us who they really are, and if some day in the future they try to convince us that they’ve rediscovered the virtue that had merely lain dormant within them for a while, we’d better not buy it."

We'd better not buy it, indeed.  

 

 

 

QOTD: The Source Of Trump's Power

 

From former Labor Secretary and Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley Robert Reich, writing in his Substack column after the unstable Malignant Fascist's performance at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey:

"It’s important to understand the source of Trump’s power.

His power doesn’t come from his being president of the most powerful nation in the world. In fact, his arbitrary tariffs, absurd war in Iran, and outright abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife have reduced America’s standing in much of the world.

Nor does his power come from his MAGA base, which is now having second thoughts about supporting someone who got the U.S. involved in another Middle Eastern war, caused prices to rise, and still refuses to release the complete Epstein files.

Nor does his power flow from his strategic brilliance or cunning. Of all U.S. presidents in modern times, he easily ranks as the stupidest.

Trump’s power comes from his willingness to violate all the norms, rules, and laws about how American presidents are supposed to act — to do anything that helps him accumulate more wealth, power, and glory, and wreak vengeance on anyone who has tried to get in the way.

The NATO presidents and prime ministers treated Trump with extraordinary deference because they’re afraid of what he might do if he doesn’t get what he wants.

Whether it’s NATO, Iran. the World Cup, the 2020 election, making billions off his presidency — or anything else — he’s unconstrained by norms, rules, treaties, and laws."  (our emphasis)

Reich's entire perceptive column is well worth the read. He's zeroed in on what makes the MF so dangerous and disturbing, and why we'll be cleaning up his messes for years to come.

 

QOTD: Stick A Fork In It

 

Former Federal prosecutor Joyce Vance writing in her Substack on the corrupt sexual abuser Malignant Fascist on trying to delay and frustrate payment of the judgement he owes to his rape victim, journalist E. Jean Carroll:

"The most annoying thing, from a legal perspective, about Donald Trump is how he plays the delay game, drawing cases out far longer than any other litigant could get away with. He relentlessly files borderline (and sometimes outright) frivolous motions and fights every step of the way, using every motion to reconsider and every other procedural tool available, even when it’s hopeless.

That’s how it felt today in the E. Jean Carroll case. We’ll get to what happened during the day in a minute, but first let’s start with how it ended, just after 10 p.m. ET. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to stay District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s order that it was time for Trump to pay Carroll the $5 million, plus post-judgment interest, that he owes her. The Second Circuit ruled just hours after Trump asked for the stay.

Trump, of course, isn’t done yet. Next, he’ll ask the Supreme Court for a stay. Prediction: It will be similarly unavailing. Stick a fork in this case. It’s done."

It's a sign of how far the culture and corporate media have been degraded to treat this story with a yawn, as if it's commonplace for a U.S. President to avoid paying for his criminal actions, in this case, defamation of his rape victim. But it's time to stick a big fork in the MF's desperate move.

 

QOTD: Arrests For Laughing At Them

The always insightful Amanda Marcotte, writes in Salon.com about the farcical effort of the delusional and incompetent Malignant Fascist and his cult to blame the disastrous re-make of the Reflecting Pool on nonsensical "sabotage" by imaginary box cutter-wielding, algae-loving libs. Here's an excerpt from her great read:

"Do these people believe this silly lie? With MAGA, it’s always hard to distinguish the line between self-serving tales and genuine delusion. Ultimately, it’s irrelevant: What matters more is why right-wingers are burrowing so deeply into this nonsense. Like Trump, they want an excuse to arrest people for laughing at them. It really isn’t deeper than that. Just as Trump is too egotistical to admit he screwed up the iconic Reflecting Pool, his followers cannot stomach admitting liberals were right all along about how stupid it was to vote for him.

The whole debacle is another blunt reminder that fascism is a movement for people who would rather blame everyone or everything else — including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; the word “woke;” antifa; Obama; Hillary Clinton and three-time Olympians — for their failures than do the hard work of improving themselves and their country. This is evident in the clown car that is Trump’s Cabinet, which is stuffed full of members like Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel — people who would never succeed on their own terms, but have been able to ride the wave of conservative resentment into positions they’re not qualified for. But it’s also true of the everyday MAGA voters that fall for these politics, and constantly vote against their economic self-interest just to stick it to those smarty-pants liberals with their annoying competence." (our emphasis)

With a cult like MAGA, any lie or delusion supporting their twisted agenda and beliefs will suffice, and their pathological cult leader will eagerly supply them with those lies every hour of every day.