What's with the Nov. 2022 Elon Musk tweet about Trump which I decided to censor?

  By Hal Brown

I found this tweet from Elon Musk posted on Nov. 20, 2022 in this column by one of my favorite writers, Heather "Digby" Parton of Salon:

Ron DeSantis — like Elon Musk's Twitter — is really the second choice

This is the full illustration in the Elon Musk tweet . Above is the tweet with half the image edited out by me. I'm just trying to avoid Google Blogger posting an adult content warning on this story.

Click above to enlarge. I deleted the blog that led to this
 advisory but kept it on Substack here

Digby writes that "Musk begged Trump to come back to Twitter with vulgar memes like this designed to entice the libertine ex-president..."

Of course we know that Ron DeSantis is announcing that he's running for president on some sort of Twitter broadcast with Elon Musk. It appears that Musk has given up on Trump and is all in on promoting DeSantis.

The tweet shows what Musk thought of Donald Trump back in November. It is juvenile and gross but also seems nonsensical. Again, you can view it here or this won's make any sense to you.

What struck me about the image Musk posted wasn't how it was supposed to depict Trump being tempted into a lascivious encounter with a woman perhaps representing Twitter, or perhaps not, it is difficult to say. 

One thing that struck me as weird is that Trump is depicted looking, if not like Jesus, at least like a monk. Why would Musk think this was funny? Then again, Musk has a convoluted sense of humor but still why would he promote the idea that Trump is Divine? 

The other thing I wonder is why he decided to place the image with the Twitter bird where he did? I can see him deciding not to make the illustration too graphic since it might run afoul of Twitter's guidelines about adult content but it is abundantly clear what the Trump monk is planning to do.

Is the the new way Twitter plans to censor adult images?

On the other hand, maybe he believes entering the realm of Twitter through his tweety bird is akin to revealing in the garden feminine earthly delights over where he rules supreme. 

Foreground public domain Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

Update:

I discovered that the Milo Manaro, the artist who drew the picture in the Elon Musk tweet was not pleased with his using his art work:

 

Click above to read article

This is what he posted on Instagram:

“I wish Elon Musk would be forced to tweet a thousand times:
“I will never use Milo Manara drawings again without permission. I will never again use Milo Manara’s drawings without permission. I will never again use…”

How about I sue him, asking for $44Bn in compensation? Then I could buy back Twitter and give it back to someone else to manage!

In the illustration in the same place that Musk had the Twitter bird Manara had the following:

DeSantis on Trump extradiction, it's all about me, me, me, me...

 By Hal Brown

Caricatures by DonkeyHotey

If the reporting is correct Trump will present himself for arraignment  in New York and not hole up at Mar-a-Lago making himself the most famous fugitive since Julian Assange . Notwithstanding this Ron DeSantis, made a play for publicity minutes after the Trump indictment was announced:

Ignoring the antisemitic dog whistle about George Soros, the key words in his tweet are that Florida will not assist in an extradition request. 

The procedure and process for extradition is spelled out in detail here. It is in the US Constitution:

Extradition Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article IV Section 2) requires that:

A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

This is how Business Insider addresses what DeSantis tweeted: 

There are two ways that someone can be extradited from Florida to another state. These are described below.

Excerpt from Business Insider:

In the more common method — which DeSantis appeared to refer to — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul would send an extradition demand to the Florida governor. The governor's only role is making sure the demand meets all the legal requirements before ordering the extradition, legal experts told Insider. The demand would have to include a copy of the indictment, proving there's a warrant out for Trump's arrest.

If DeSantis wanted to slow the process he could ask his legal affairs office or a prosecutor to review Hochul's extradition demand and write a report before signing off on it. If the extradition demand is legitimate, however, he'll have to sign it within 60 days, legal experts said. He could also delegate and let another member of the Florida executive branch sign off on Hochul's extradition demand.

In the second extradition method, Manhattan prosecutors could bypass the governors entirely and ask a Florida court to order Trump to show up in New York court.

This Newsweek article also explains why DeSantis couldn't block an extradition request.

I can't imagine Donald Trump doing anything that might make it appear to his supporters that he is in any way, shape, or form accepting a favor from Ron "DeSanticomious". As I write this someone on MSNBC just agreed with me saying that there's no way Trump would want to make DeSantis look like the alpha dog. Jonathan Lemire just called it political theater coming from DeSantis. The MSNBC panel is agreeing that this matter has become a clown show.

None of this matters to DeSantis. He is competing with Kevin McCarthy for headlines:

DeSantis is threatening to do something that won't happen. McCarthy is threatening to do something, absurd as it is, which he can actually do. Still, DeSantis with his rhetorical flourishes has the more buzzy tweet.

Of course nobody's tweets can compete with the often all caps "truths" coming from Trump on his Truth Social platform.  

Unless the judge in Manhattan restricts what he can post or say about his indictment, or his lawyers convince him to put one sock over his fingers and another into his mouth, I expect Trump will continue to rant and rave. 

I predict that this posturing about horrors of Trump's indictment by DeSantis will pass since in his black heart I am certain he wants nothing but a shitload of bad for Trump.

Update: 

"Empty posturing": Experts rip DeSantis' "cheap and performative" threat to block Trump extradition

"It shows a real contempt for the rule of law in this country"

By SAMAA KHULLAR

PUBLISHED MARCH 31, 2023 1:21PM (EDT)

Addendum:

Watch Rachel Maddox discussing what DeSantis tweeted:

At the end of her show when she did the handoff to Lawrence O'Donnell she invited Stormy Daniels to appear on her show and wished her the best in making money off of this new development..

More:

It seem as if all the pundits predict that DeSantis is biding his time before announcing that he's going to run against Trump. Heather "Digby" Parton is the first person I've read who questions the inevitability of this:

Count me among those who think it's quite likely that instead of harming his chances of winning the Republican nomination, this indictment and any that follow, will almost guarantee it. As we can see by the reaction from the elected officials, it's not just the MAGA hardcore who feel compelled to rush to defend him. This is an organizing tool and a fundraising vehicle for the whole party and it may just vault him to the nomination without much competition. It's even possible that DeSantis might decide not to run after all. Article

---------------------------------------------------

On an only slightly related subject, yesterday I was wondering what the covers of the New York City tabloids would look like this morning. The New York Daily News has had a number of snarky covers featuring Trump so I was hoping to see one today. However they played it straight. It was the Murdoch NY Post which went with a snarky cover.

Click above to enlarge. Old Trump and Stormy cover upper right.

Thanks for reading. Scroll down to make comments and share on social media. The archives and tags are on the bottom. 

To beat the sadistic grandiose narcissist DeSantis needs to channel more of Trump's psychopathology

 By Hal Brown

Caricatures by DonkeyHotey, An artist's depiction of a torture chamber of the Inquisition, ca. 1736. . Public Domain, Wikipedia

Ron DeSantis is a selective sadist so he doesn't need any lesson in sadism from Trump.

Trump is incapable of empathy, DeSantis may have empathy for select people but certainly doesn't for anyone he can use to achieve a political advantage. Sadists enjoy making some people suffer. DeSantis did this when he sent migrants to Martha's Vineyard to "own the libs" who live there.

Trump has been described as both a sadistic malignant narcissist, which he is, and a poster child for The Dark Triad, a combination of being an extreme narcissist, a psychopath, and a Machiavellian (read my article here).

What will it take to shake the dour and dull DeSantis out of the doldrums? The latest news from Politico (read article) is that nothing is off the table when it comes Trump to attacking DeSantis. From bending the truth to making up bullshit with Trump it matters not as long as he thinks his attacks will resonate with his cult.

Now Trump is reportedly going to attack DeSantis for being soft on prosecuting child pornographers when he was a D.A. The fact that those in the know are saying that this wasn't true is irrelevant to Trump. The following is from Raw Story:

This line of attack on DeSantis also appears to be a dog whistle to Trump's QAnon-believing supporters who believe Trump is working to uncover a vast conspiracy involving blood-drinking Satanist pedophiles.

Trump has already promoted posts on his Truth Social site accusing DeSantis of being a "groomer," so this new line of attack would tie in with previous Trump smears against the Florida governor. From "Trump prepares to lob 'grenade' at DeSantis and 'nothing is off the table'"

How long can DeSantis ignore these attacks without counter punching? About as close to grandiosity as DeSantis ever gets is standing a podiums with signs announcing his latest anti-woke positions and policies. As close as he gets to being narcissistic is using the word "courage" in his book title:

To beat Trump, who is like a great white shark who smells blood in the water, DeSantis will have to learn to bite back and bite back hard.  It's not as if Trump isn't bleeding. He is dealing with what would be the death from a thousand cuts in a normal person. What DeSantis has to do is see which wounds are most dangerous for Trump's survival and shake him unmercifully and rip them open. Like a shark he will then have a chance to devour him.

Just to counter the bogus soft on pornography accusation Trump can truthfully be described as cheater on his pregnant wife and worse, a serial sexual abuser and an, dare DeSantis go there, someone credibly accused of being a rapist. 

Most people have trouble changing their essential natural inclinations. DeSantis doesn't have to do this. All he has to do is what actors do all the time. He has to learn his lines and recite them in a convincing way.

I really don't want him to succeed in this endeavor because I think he is a more difficult candidate for Joe Biden to beat. This isn't to say that he'll be able to convince enough voters that "wokeness" actually is something that personally threatens them. By the time the election roles around whichever Republican runs will have to convince voters that Joe Biden was the demon they depicted him as. 

Also published here.

Please scroll down to the comments link and let readers know what you think. Sharing on social media, also through the links below, is appreciated.

This Oregon Democrat survived an anxious election night in 2022, now faces a terrifying one in 2024

 By Hal Brown

Photo of author

If you are absolutely convinced that the United States is on the brink of being destroyed by those who want to make your personal life miserable, take away your precious rights, enable people you'd prefer didn't live in the same neighborhood let alone the same country with you, you only have three choices as to who to vote for in the primaries.

If you believe in democracy you vote for Joe Biden. If you are a fascist you have to decide whether to vote for one of the two strongest GOP candidates in the primary. 

The Republicans are divided and lines have already been drawn between those who support Trump and those who support DeSantis or any other candidate GOP not named Trump. This has been clearly shown in the competing conservative gatherings. See:

Dueling CPAC and Club for Growth events highlight divide within GOP ahead of 2024 from CNN

These are some of the things that Trump said at CPAC:

• the nation is in a "communism state of mind" 
• America is a "socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, thugs, Marxist radicals and dangerous refugees that no other country wants." He claimed that people in the country illegally are staying in the U.S. in "beautiful hotel suites."
• traditional Republicans are "freaks, neocons, globalist open borders zealots — and fools."
• he has the "personality to keep us out of war."
• “We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars, that are stupid.” 
• "I am your warrior. I am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution."
  

More about the key moments from Trump's CPAC rant.

We know how Ron DeSantis has taken steps in Florida to turn his state into the sunny anti-woke fascist playground I depicted by making this illustration:

The are two basic groups of Americans:

People who want the country to be a tolerant inclusive society governed by civil servants who believe that all people deserve fair and equal treatment by those empowered to enforce the law. 

People who want the country to be an intolerant exclusive society governed by civil servants who believe that all people  not in their group deserve biased and unequal treatment by those empowered to enforce the law. 

We have no choice but to recognize that there is a significant minority of the population who fall to varying degrees into the second group above. The polls suggest that they don't represent a majority across the country but they do in some states.

The travesty of the Electoral College is that it is the least democratic form of electing leaders short of only allowing one candidate to run for each position which one can imagine. If we had each vote count equally across the states the country wouldn't be in danger of a fascist takeover. Nationwide polls show that the majority of voting age Americans are in favor of things that ought to lead them to vote for President Biden. Consider the results from this poll from prior to the 2020 election: 

National Survey Finds Bipartisan Support for Expansive View of Rights

Click below to enlarge:

There's no doubt that the next election will be the most anxiety provoking one many of us, meaning those who are reading this blog, have lived through. That is with the exception of one commenter who wrote this other day "Your ongoing fixation on Trump is quite sad. I hope you get help."

My friends in Oregon already had practice dealing with a potentially close election because a third party candidate for governor, Betsy Johnson, could have upended the chances of the Democratic Party candidate Tina Kotek and given the election to a far right candidate, Christine Drazen. 

I wonder about what it would be like to be put into an induced coma until after the election. Would I wake up to find we have a President Trump or a President DeSantis? Would I wake to find out the the GOP still controlled the House and won the Senate? Or would I wake up to be told that the Democrats won across the board? I'd be spared all these months of growing anxiety. But then I'd miss out on all the interesting discussions with my political junkie friends. Not only that, by the time I woke up nobody would be reading my blog.

I want to live my life to the fullest and at my age, approaching 80, would not want to give up the time until we know for sure the results of the 2024 elections.

---------------

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Mr. Blowhard vs. Mr. Boring

 By Hal Brown

I hope Trump doesn't pick up the nickname Ron DeSooozer. I think it is the best one yet. Fortunately I rather doubt he reads my blog.

How long will the Governor of The Sunshine State fight clean against the slinger of salacious suggestions?

Click above to enlarge

Yesterday my partner and I managed to make our way through The Banshees of Inisherin ( 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes):

Set on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN follows lifelong friends Pádraic and Colm, who find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship. A stunned Pádraic, aided by his sister Siobhán and troubled young islander Dominic, endeavours to repair the relationship, refusing to take no for an answer. But Pádraic's repeated efforts only strengthen his former friend’s resolve and when Colm delivers a desperate ultimatum, events swiftly escalate, with shocking consequences.

To say the the movie is a downer is an understatement. The reason I am referring to it is because the story revolves about the reason Colm abruptly ends his friendship with Pádraic is that he's dull. Colm has concluded that he has better things to do with his life than waste time with Pádraic  Pádraic believes that boring or not there is virtue in being a nice guy. Colm isn't a blowhard like Trump, but he is a performer as he composes music which then entertains the villagers with playing on his violin at the pub to an appreciative audience. (I previously got the names reversed.)

Of course neither Donald Trump nor Ron DeSantis are nice guys but the most commonly described political deficit DeSantis has to overcome is that he comes across as boring and dull.

DeSantis makes the news by being an anti-woke warrior by promulgating policy. He stands before podiums with a plethora of cardboard signs and in his dull as dirt style announces his latest executive action.

He has yet to go on an offensive offensive directly against Donald Trump. 

DeSantis is not only dull as dirt but his delivery is as dry as the desert. 

If Trump trounces DeSantis he will do it for two reasons. One is that enough members of his cult remain loyal to him, but the other is that his schtick still sticks. Trump, from what I can tell , comes up with his insults himself. He spitballs them, now on Truth Social, and sees what sticks. 

DeSantis so far has mostly ignored them. On the accusation from Trump that he was a groomer of teenaged girls when he spent a year teaching as a private school this is how he responded:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday hit back at former President Donald Trump, a day after Trump promoted a social media post accusing DeSantis of "grooming" teenage girls.

While speaking with reporters, DeSantis was asked about Trump's decision to amplify a Truth Social post that accused DeSantis of plying teen girls with alcohol while he was a high school teacher.

After filibustering for a bit, DeSantis directly addressed Trump's efforts to falsely smear him as a sexual predator.

"I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden," the Florida governor said. "That's how I spend my time. I don't spend my time trying to smear other Republicans." Raw Story

Click above to enlarge tweet reposted by Trump

This is an attack ripe for a riposte since if anyone can be credibly accused of being ephebophiliaesque (primarily sexually attracted to mid to late adolescents) it's Donald Trump. This is evidenced by how he behaved at the Moscow Miss. Universe Pageant and other pageants he owned where contestants complained he watched them undress and harassed them.

Click above for article

DeSantis has plenty of ammunition to fire back at Trump. He has yet to utilize it. If he does so he will need help both an acting coach and a script writer because unlike Trump he is not a natural.

A knock-down drag-out slimy slugfest between these two will prove to be entertaining. The winner will go up against someone who doesn't need any coaching or script writers to help craft comebacks. Joe Biden can do this with his wry sense of humor.

Consider how he put down Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday, sarcastically asking a room full of House Democrats during their annual retreat in Baltimore “isn’t she amazing?”

“She was very specific — I shouldn’t digress, probably — I read, she was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is, that fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” Biden said, letting out a chuckle.

He stopped himself from continuing on the topic.

“Look folks. Anyway, I don’t want to get started,” he said.

 (The Hill)

No matter who ultimately wins the GOP primary I hope that whoever runs is so battered and bruised that the swing voters who leaned Republican consider them so damaged that they'll look at all that President Biden and the Democrats accomplished for them and the country, and to promote democracy, and vote D down the line.

Addendum:

I doubt Trump has the five point plan suggested here. He is well aware that few if any of the members of his cult care, or even understand, anything on the list. He knows that they will respond viscerally (not that he can define this word) to his hurling insults at DeSantis. He knows that even if DeSantis wanted to fight back in kind he'd be inept in doing this. In effect it would be a battle between Mr. Blowhard and Mr. Boring. DeSantis might try to get Trump to drink poison but Trump won't take a swallow.

‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing Trump

He (Rick Wilson) adds: “Right now they’re all talking so much shit: ‘I’m not going to get with Trump. I’m going to be with the hot new number, DeSantis.’ When DeSantis gets his ass handed to him, when he gets his clock cleaned in a debate or forum or just by Trump grinding away at him, eating him alive mentally for weeks on end, and suddenly Donald Trump’s numbers start posting up again, all the conservative thinkers who are right now like, ‘We will never vote for Trump again, we have integrity!’ will find themselves some excuse. ‘Well, you know, we don’t like Trump’s tweets, but otherwise it’s pure communism!’

Recommended reading:

The media is underestimating Donald Trump — again

How many expeditions into Trumplandia will the media have to take?

By Chauncey DeVega

Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Your ongoing fixation on Trump is quite sad. I hope you get help.

March 3, 2023 at 7:09 AM

 

 Ben Kalom said...

I would offer in response to the first comment: 
We have an obligation to remain vigilant, to continue to offer up ridicule, to be hyperaware of both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis. Predators need to be paid attention to. The pair of them have only one goal - hunting down their next victim.

This is a continuation of a traumatic stretch of years in our lives.

Interesting interview with Steven Spielberg on Colbert last night.

They got into the topic of antisemitism, and Spielberg offered up that he hadn't seen the rise in antisemitism in the last 50 years or so, not until now, when marginalization made possible the returned spread of general hatred, and its bedfellow, antisemitism.

Spielberg said he was given hope through the words of Anne Frank, who offered, in her diary, people are basically good.

When you watch the interview, you will see the imaginarium of Spielberg's genius, being stretched to find that hope.

If these creepos get their way, minorities will be marched off to some as-yet undisclosed location, to be eliminated, to re-enact the horror of 1938-1945 Germany.

The ONLY thing that stops the insanity of our current foment and discord is when good people get pissed off, stand resolute, agree to defend their herds and find community with those doing the same.

Please keep bashing the shit outta these two assclowns. They have earned our contempt.

March 3, 2023 at 7:27 AM

 

I was ready to open a Truth Social account and try to post an abridged version on this which was complementary to Trump on a new free blog in an attempt to get Trump to "re-Truth" it. I thought that I might get him to start using Ron DeSnoozer and then I could take credit for it and direct people to my actual blog. I opened a new dedicated email and that worked for step one of verification but then in order to complete registering I needed a phone number which they would verify as step two. I tried some fake phone numbers I found online but none of them worked. I wasn't about to give them one of my two real phone numbers. 

If I really want to bother going through with this I can buy a $20 burner phone and see if I can register with that number.

DeSantis's great Florida fascist experiment

 By Hal Brown

Click above to enlarge

Ron DeSantis, with his Harvard undergraduate degree and his Yale Law School degree, is now conducting an experiment worthy of a PhD dissertation in political science or a related field. He is conducting an experiment and the entire voting age population of the country are the subjects. He will attempt to determine whether the fascist leader of one state with a fairly unique population mix can attract a significant number of voters in a wide variety of other states. 

He is obviously going to run for the GOP nomination for president and has already taken his campaign on the road to test the waters in various states. He may be working on honing his performative skills so he comes across as more likable realizing, if he has any insight into himself, that he'll never have the odd charisma of Donald Trump.

There's no way DeSantis can beat Trump at the game of street, or rally, theater. One thing he has to do to beat Trump is wipe out as many early primary candidates as possible probably through raising far more money that they do.

However, the main thing DeSantis has to do is make the Florida fascist experiment a rousing success that sells to the likely voters in states with a large group who agrees with his anti-woke and pro-white agenda. 

If he can do this it wouldn't matter that he's duller than dirt or that there will always be a contingent of hard-core Trump cultists for whom nobody can substitute for the original.

If he can peel away enough Republican Trump voters from the far-right bigoted base he has a chance of winning the primary.

Should DeSantis be the candidate the rest of the country has to decide whether they want the entire country to look like Florida.

Update about DeSantis from: 

Introducing the first-ever, sort-of-annual Bulls**t Awards: Not just for Republicans! by Brian Karem in Salon

A Mini-Me Bullshit award goes to Ron DeSantis, who while proving to be smarter than Trump (at least in some ways) has the charisma of roadkill and the smell of a dead skunk in the middle of the road. (That's a reference to an obscure song lyric — actually, DeSantis is so far to the right he's off the road). He mimics Trump's fascism in every move he makes, but takes it even further as he tries to turn the state of Florida into a Disney version of Germany in 1937. 

Disney? I would say it would be a show from horror icons John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and George Romero. 

Why hasn't Trump nicknamed his rival Ron DeAnus?

 By Hal Brown

Caricature by DonkeyHotey

I've been waiting for Trump to start using Ron DeAnus as his primary nickname for Ron DeSantis. It was so obviously I was surprised that he hadn't started using it. I find it hard to believe Trump hadn't thought of it.

No matter what the actual meaning of "de" is in French most Americans would take it as meaning "the", thus they would read the nickname as Ron The Anus. They would get it, understanding that Trump is saying DeSantis is an asshole.

I can't imagine that Trump would think his cult would be offended by his use of the word "anus".  Therefore what is there about the anus that keeps him from introducing this nickname, at least from testing it out.

All I can think of are two possibilities. One is derived from depth psychology, from Freudian theory, and involves Trump being stuck in the anal developmental phase which children pass through between the ages of one and three.

During the anal stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and bowel movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet training—the child has to learn to control their bodily needs. Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence.

According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents ​approach toilet training. Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive.

Freud believed that positive experiences during the toilet training stage serve as the basis for people to become competent, productive, and creative adults.

However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement that children need during this stage. Some parents punish, ridicule, or shame a child for accidents.

According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the individual has a messy, wasteful, or destructive personality.

If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive. From VeryWell Mind

If Trump had conflicts during these years any reminder of bowel movements might be anxiety provoking for him.

The other possibility for not using this nickname is much more mundane. Considering how his diet habits, lack of exercise, and his obesity it is simply that he now is struggling with hemorrhoids. It may be merely that using the word "anus" reminds him of his itchy bleeding butt.

Another blog from today:

Click above to read