Perp Previou Prez Trump to be arrested Tuesday (or so he says)

Perp Previous Prez Trump to be arrested Tuesday (or so he says) 

By Hal Brown

Late update based on all of today's progressive pessimistic punditry warning us not to get our hope up:

I can't believe I ate the whole thing...

.......

I woke this morning, turned on Morning Joe, and heard the breaking news that Trump expects to be arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday. 

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Neither The NY Times nor Washington Post featured this on their websites but my go-to website for Breaking News looked like this:

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A few minutes later the page was updated:

While the NYC DA's office hasn't confirmed this it would seem that Trump wanted to preempt their announcing this and take the lead which, if it is true that information he said incorrectly in Truth Social came from leaks (a lawyer for Trump, Susan R. Necheles, said that his post had been based on news reports) turns out to come to pass. 

Trump uses the word "arrest" for the shock value. In fact, he won't be formally arrested, put in cuffs, and so on since he would surrender to the Court.

This is what he posted in Truth Social in all caps. 

Click above to enlarge, doses not link to Truth Social

"OUR NATION IS NOW THIRD WORLD & DYING. THE AMERICAN DREAM IS DEAD! THE RADICAL LEFT ANARCHISTS HAVE STOLLEN OUR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, AND WITH IT, THE HEART OF OUR OUR COUNTRY. AMERICAN PATRIOTS ARE BEING ARRESTED & HELD IN CAPTIVITY LIKE ANIMALS, WHILE CRIMINALS & LEFTIST THUGS ARE ALLOWED TO ROAM THE STREETS, KILLING & BURNING WITH NO RETRIBUTION. MILLIONS ARE FLOODING THROUGH OUR OPEN BOARDERS, MANY FROM PRISONS & MENTAL INSTITUTIONS. CRIME & INFLATION ARE DESTROYING OUR VERY WAY OF LIFE..."

He then added, "NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!"

MSNBC reported that the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, is refusing to comment on the Truth Social post.

Again, it is noteworthy and possibly legally risky for him on so many levels, for him to end his post with a call for protests with the call to take the country back. This is how the Associated Press put it: Trump’s call for his supporters to protest that was especially jarring, evoking language that the then-president used shortly before the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This is from The Washington Post:

Trump’s post was reminiscent of his call in late 2020 for supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to protest the election results, urging them to “Be there, will be wild.” On Saturday, Truth Social users posted comments such as “all hell will break loose” in response to the possibility of Trump’s indictment.

On MSNBC Rep. Maxine Watters just said that he seemed to be trying to organize domestic terrorists to protest his arrest, and that she thought he was doing this for a reason. Attorney Barbara McQuade suggested that Trump's usual tactic is the best defense is a good offense.

According to Glenn Kirschner on the Katie Phang Show the former president's all-caps post on Truth Social that seems to encourage violence will become evidence in future indictments.

I have little doubt that Trump is reveling in the prospect of an indictment followed by an arrest. Unconsciously be may be afraid but I don't think he lets anxiety percolate into conscious awareness.

The word one hears the most is "victimization" used in the context of Trump and MAGA raging against the Democrats have weaponized the government to destroy the country.

Whether of not Trump has, as claimed, heard from so-called "illegal leaks" coming from Alvin Bragg's office isn't particularly relevant. He may have made have made this up based on hearing reports that such an indictment may be forthcoming. Again, Trump's usual modus operandi is to go on the offense whenever he feels threatened.

If I were Alvin Bragg I would do anything but arrest him on Tuesday, although the necessary co-ordination between his team, Trump's lawyers, and the Secret Service might not give him much leeway in the timing. 

Trump of course will know for certain when the actual arrest is planned for and how it will occur, so Bragg will have to cede to him the ability to conduct a self-serving MAGA PR campaign around this. This gives him a decided advantage in how to plan his indictment day performance.

There are only a few things he can't control. One is whether or not cameras are allowed to film his perp walk and which entrance will be used for him to go into the building he is required to go to. I think hie wants to have this event to be shown all over the media.

Here's the Manhattan Criminal Court (north and south entrances) where Trump will probably be arraigned after he surrenders. I don't know if there's a basement entrance.

I wonder if he will be wearing a Make American Great Again hat going into the courthouse. New York doesn't allow men to wear hats inside their courts unless they are religious, although Trump could try to say MAGA is a religion..

Update 1:

On MSNBC Michael Cohen said that he doesn't think there were any leaks coming from Alvin Bragg's office, but that Trump would know the details of his arrest if it was imminent since this would have to be coordinated with his lawyers and Secret Service. Cohen also said, as did others on MSNBC earlier, that Trump could have called for peaceful protest, not just protest, and he knows exactly what he is doing by calling for the most extreme forms of protest just like he did on January 6th.

Update 2:

Aside from more proof Marjorie Taylor Greene is addressing an audience of one in her quest to run for vice president, she lays out all the claims Trump will make about the here.

Update 3:

No comment needed on this Kevin McCarthy tweet except that while he's not running for vice president on the Trump ticket he's desperate to keep his job lest he offend Marjorie Taylor Greene and he MAGA army.

Jim Jordan retweeted McCarthy's tweet:

Update 4: 

Watch interview with Michael Cohen here. 

Here's Rachel Maddow's opinion.

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Trump has ants is his pants and so does this guy named Steve Cheung

Trump has ants is his pants and so does this guy named Steve Cheung

By Hal Brown

This is a logo, title-card, or title-screen owned by Treehouse TV for Ants in Your Pants. Fair use.

It would have been easy to put ants in the background of the image used in the HUFFPOST top of the webpage article:

Click above to read article

The word "antsy" is derived from the saying having ants in one's pants:

Imagining this literally happening to you evokes decidedly unpleasant feelings. Even tiny sugar ants, itchy ick, but imaging carpenter or red ants, ugh!

Rather than put a background of ants in my illustration (just for my fun and hopefully readers enjoyment) I changed the ad that appeared in the article:

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Trump did nothing wrong? Hmmmm... 

I suppose just like his claiming he didn't have an affair with Stormy Daniels (as I wrote here, he didn't, he had a one-night-stand, the worst 90 seconds of Ms. Daniels' life) it depends on the meaning of the word "wrong" (below is how the dictionary defines it):

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This is from the HUFFPOST article:

“President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most Radical Left Democrats are making that clear,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for his campaign, said in a statement. “From Russia, Russia, Russia, to the Mueller Hoax, to Impeachment Hoaxes 1 and 2, and even the Unlawful Mar-a-Lago Raid, Democrats have investigated and attacked President Trump since before he was elected — and they’ve failed every time.”

Steven Cheung

Steven Cheung, who is quoted above, is basically mouthing the words from his boss. Wikipedia tells us that he used to be a communications executive for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and attended, but not necessarily graduated from, California State University in Sacramento. In a Politico interview he said:

“My career began in the California governor’s office as a communications and speechwriting intern while in college. It was one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had, because I learned the importance about what not to do just as much as what I should do. That experience has helped guide me throughout a variety of jobs in my career from working on political campaigns across the country to sports organizations like the UFC.”

Since Mr. Cheung was a speechwriting intern for Gov.

Arnold Schwarzenegger it is fair to assume he knows the meaning of the word "wrong" even if Donald Trump doesn't.

He must also know what side of the bread his butter has to go on. For example, he worked for the Ultimate Fighting Championship which it by some accounts is a scripted pseudo-sports competition, for example It's all fake, right? A professional wrestler explains everything. Whether these matches are scripted or not, you know anyone promoting them has to make sure fans believe the outcomes aren't pre-determined.

There are so many prevarication promoting people today working for right-wing politicians and media who must have in their job description that they have to be adept at saying the opposite of the truth. They could be working for Big Brother.

What the hell... I made the illustration anyway:

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Lindsay Graham isn't a psychologist but his assessment of Trump is right on

 Lindsay Graham isn't a psychologist but his assessment of Trump is right on

By Hal Brown, MSW

Background by DonkeyHotey

This story is making the news today:

HUFFPOST article above

On the face of it this isn't surprising. The fact that Lindsay Graham,  testifying during a special grand jury investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn his defeat in Georgia, said that “if somebody had told Trump that aliens came down and stole Trump ballots, that Trump would’ve believed it," isn't really my point. Politically, Graham doesn't run for the Senate until his current term expires in 2027 so apparently he doesn't believe saying this about Trump will hurt his election chances.

Trump has turned curious critics into armchair psychologists. Until he came along the average American not familiar with psychological concepts who reads articles by and interviews with mental health professionals became familiar with several syndromes. They may have looked up malignant narcissism, dark triad, and Dunning-Kruger effect on Wikipedia when they decided that the best way to defeat one's enemy was to fully understand him. 

Do a Google image search for Trump in strait jacket and this is what comes up (click images to enlarge):

Trump was such a candidate for mockery because of his unhingedness, but the seriousness of his mental state tended to be overlooked or minimized by those who should have known better. 

When the book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" was published the editor, Yale University forensic psychiatrist Bandy Lee, went to Washington, met with a dozen members of Congress, and made sure every Democrat in Congress had a copy. (See Yale psychiatrist briefed members of Congress on Trump’s mental fitness , CNN (Jan. 5, 2018)

The first mental health professional to publish an article explaining why Trump's malignant narcissism made him dangerous was the founder of Duty To Warn and who made the documentary #UNFIT clinical psychologist John Gartner in Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic, USA Today, (May 4, 2017).

It wasn't merely mental health professionals who warned about Trump's dangerous psychopathy. George Conway is a prominent example: Donald Trump's Pathological Narcissism and Sociopathy Leave Him Unable to Function as a Proper President, Says George Conway, Newsweek, (10/3/19)

In the summer of 2020 Trump's psychologist niece wrote her book and went on a media tour and has since been a prominent critic of her uncle.

In 2022 it was revealed that John Kelly read "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" and came to believe he was "pathological liar whose inflated ego" was the sign of a "deeply insecure person,” according to upcoming book "The Divider." (LINK).

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The first article about Trump being a narcissist by a mental health professional,  Northwestern University psychologist Dan P. McAdams, as far as I can tell, was in The Atlantic in June, 2016 I won't put a link because if you click you will use a free read unless you have a subscription. You can read a summary of the article for free here.

I wrote many articles about Trump's psychopatholgy first published on Capitol Hill Blue and then posted on Daily Kos. In Sept. 2022 I used this image of a Google search page for  Trump mentally ill in a Daily Kos posting:

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Bottom line: Trump has amply demonstrated that in addition to sharing the authoritarian and white supremacist beliefs of Ron DeSantos he is manifestly psychologically unstable. There is no way someone like him should be within 100 miles of the nuclear football.

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