Maybe George Soros had his Jewish space laser scrambling the brains of the E. Jean Carroll jurors., Plus George Santos

 By Hal Brown, trying to think of something remotely original to write about the verdict of the E. Jean Carroll trial

Trump rants about the evil corrupt Democrat judge failing of course to address the fact that it was a jury of nine New Yorkers who found him liable and decided how much he had to pay.

Republicans with the rare exception of Mitt Romney either refuse to comment or give mealy mouth answers when asked their opinions about this.

Some are defining the phrase doubling down in expressing how their support of Donald Tump has increased since the verdict. Case in point, Sen. Tommy Tuberville who said it made him want to vote for him twice.

Pence wins the Academy of Lame Irrelevancy Award for his saying that in all his years of knowing Trump he never heard or witnessed behavior of that nature. Talk about a lame way to try to avoid giving his opinion about whether Trump was fit to be president. As if Trump would disabuse his holier than thou vice president of his belief that the most righteous one is actually a crude decidedly unchristian misogynist who has a history os sexual assaulting women. How lame is Pence's comment? This lame:

Across the country there are two basic group of Trump worshippers reacting to this verdict. One group is composed of those who agree with Trump's claim that it never happened and he didn't even know who E. Jean Carroll was (despite this photographic evidence to the contrary). They believe in one or another, or perhaps all, of the possible conspiracies which led to this outcome.

Then there's another group who may or may not think the charges are bullshit. In a way these people, mostly men but some women, think that Trump was entitled to sexually assault E. Jean Carroll because he's some sort of testosterone fueled god. I have no doubt that there are men who envy Trump for having gotten away with sexually assaulting so many women. The more the merrier could be their motto.

These sexual predator wannabes wish they were famous enough so they could roam the aisle of high end women's clothing stores and target women they found attractive and have their way with them in convenient dressing rooms.

As for the hopefully small group of Trump supporters who suffer from delusional psychiatric disorders I suppose it is possible a few believe in far-out, literally far far out explanations for the verdict. After all, George Soros supposedly has powers few if any other mortals possess and lasers are amazing. It wouldn't take a leap of their imagination for these pathetic people to be convinced he had his orbiting mythical machine zapping the brains of the E. Jean Carroll jurors into finding Trump guilty.

Among the GOP professional political prognosticators there are many who know that while Trump may cruise to victory in the primary he is likely to lose in the general election. A good example of this comes from the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal.

I expect that at some time an entrepreneur in New York City will start a MAGA bus tour where Trump cult members can hop on a bus and gawk at the various sites significant in Trump's life.

Lower right, Trump visited this German restaurant in 2007 because his head of security at the time was friends with the owners. He autographed a photo of himself. Later the owners took the photo off the wall when patrons complained.

Revealed on "Morning Joe" this morning: "He did it and you know it" is what E. Jean Carroll told Joe Tapocina when they saw each other and shook hands after the trial. She said she looked him right in the eyes.

I think it is fitting that she decided to go on "Morning Joe" today.  She appeared with one of her lawyers, Roberta Kaplan. This is a show that Trump is known to watch at least occasionally.

“Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski mocked former President Trump for sending a statement attacking the MSNBC show. 

“From: 

‘Morning Joe’ hosts mock Trump

From Trump: Will ‘Morning Joe’ be canceled? He and Mika’s ratings are very low—they are having an extremely hard time finding an audience to listen to the Fake News they spurn,” Trump said in his statement. “Losing them would be very sad—hope it doesn’t happen!”

“A couple things here,” Scarborough said, grinning, as he sipped his iced coffee. “I’ve never heard him talk about spurn. Using that as a word. I don’t use the word.” 

“Secondly,” Scarborough said of Trump, “he can’t quit us.” 

“Even had to say, ‘It’d be a shame.’ I’m surprised, we’ve been talking football for two hours,” he added. 

The panel on the show laughed as they read a chyron displayed on the screen during the segment that read: “Morning Joe thanks faithful viewer: Florida retiree sends thoughts on show.” 

I am glad to have been able to see E. Jean Carroll on TV this morning. I found her to be both engaging and forthright. I can see how the jury ruled in her favor. Comparing someone testifying with sincerity and genuine feeling in person, and being cross-examined in an unempathic way, with the video deposition of Trump it had to be a simple task for the jury to decide who to believe. The short deliberation which came as a surprise to legal observers attests to this.

Just a bit of snark:

Trump posted this on Truth Social:

"I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"

My take on this:

Trump with his mother, click image to enlarge

On another subject:

This is unrelated to the Carroll-Trump case but very much related to justice. We have the arrest of George Santos on federal charges which if convicted could land him in prison. There are several elements to the Santos case in addition to what will be his fate. One of course is that he has been a big time embarrassment to Republicans. The other, more significantly, is that Kevin McCarthy is hamstrung in being able to pressure him to resign since he needs his vote on the dept ceiling.

Note how this morning the Santos story was top of the website in The Washington Post, inflation number two, and the Trump verdict number three:

The verdict story was even lower down The New York Times website:

On another subject

Comer fails to link president in Biden family probe

The Oversight chair revealed Wednesday that Biden family members, business associates or related companies received more than $10 million from companies run by foreign nationals. He showed no connection to Joe Biden.

Click to go to main blog. Updates will be posted here rather that on Booksie, Substack, or Medium.

Please add your comment

If you don't see the Disquis comment section click here and scroll to bottom of page.

Ticket to Hell: The moral turpitude of Clarence Thomas

 By Hal Brown

.

Clarence Thomas, and his wife Ginni, consider themselves to be good Christians. Presumably they believe in Heaven and Hell. No less an expert than the Billy Graham tells us the following:

Satan is not imaginary; he isn’t something people dreamed up just to try to explain the existence of evil. Satan is real, and the Bible makes it clear that he is a powerful (and evil) spiritual being who is absolutely opposed to God and His goodness.

The Bible doesn’t give us a detailed account of Satan’s origin but it does indicate that Satan originally was one of God’s angels, created by Him to carry out His will. But apparently Satan became filled with jealousy and pride, and he decided that he would lead a rebellion against God so he could take God’s place as the ruler of all creation. The Bible says, “You said in your heart… ‘I will make myself like the Most High'” (Isaiah 14:13-14).

 By what standard of morality are they going to Heaven when they die? If living one's life mired in moral turpitude is a ticket to hellfire and damnation they will be welcomed as fitting for a dignitary with his resume with open arms to Hell by Satan himself.

Caricature by DonkeyHotey

Meaning of Malum in se.

I thought it was ironic that when I looked at this Washington Post article that the ad on the side was for the Netflix hit political thriller starring Keri Russell ("The Americans"),  "The Diplomat", because the show is about a highly moral and ethical woman newly assigned to be ambassador to the United Kingdom.

There are two related definitions of moral turpitude:

Click above to enlarge, malum in se means
 an offense that is evil or wrong from its
 own nature irrespective of statute 

The first definition is "an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community" and the second is "a quality of dishonesty or other immorality that is determined by a court to be present in the commission of a criminal offense."

Note the following with my emphasis:

 Whether a criminal offense involves moral turpitude is an important determination in deportation, disbarment, and other disciplinary hearings. Past crimes involving moral turpitude usually may also be introduced as evidence to impeach testimony. Crimes such as theft, perjury, and vice crimes have been found to involve moral turpitude.

Moral turpitude can be a factor in disbarment hearings. Ordinary lawyers can be disbarred and thus no longer allowed to practice law. I am not sure whether judges can be disbarred but I do know that there is only one way to remove a Supreme Court justice and that is through impeachment. No Supreme Court justice has been removed from office and the only one to be impeached by the House of Representatives was Samuel Chase in 1804 who was accused of allowing his political bias to influence his decision on the high court.

This is despite that fact that the Constitution says the following in Article III, Section 1 (my emphasis):

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. 

Good behavior is not defined. It seems obvious that the Founders did not think it was necessary to define what this meant. 

What Clarence Thomas has done, from what I and many others believe he did to Anita Hill, to how he accepted gifts from a billionaire is to act in a manner which fits definition number one. It is a stretch to define his actions as a justice in the highest court in the land as good behavior.

Dictionary definition number two is a legal standard and, to quote Hamlet, ay, there's the rub.

Clarence Thomas sits on the one American court which has no ethical or moral code which judges, called... and I have to use the word ironically again... are referred to as justices, are held to. On the Supreme Court we have several justices whose idea of justice if you define the word as used in "equal justice for all" has little to do with justice. 

Thomas makes some lists, like this one as one of the five worst Supreme Court justices of all time.

Lucky for Thomas, there's no justice Supreme Court justices are compelled to apply to themselves.

Addendum

Here's another DonkeyHotey caricature and illustration. It was published in Who, What, Why.

Click above to enlarge. Clarence's malfeasance is entwined with and involves collusion with his wife Ginni to advance their shared agenda.  

Clarence's bad behavior doesn't merely involve his sugar daddy with the NAZI memorabilia collection and the dictator garden Harlan Crow. If you believe Crow never used his relationship with the Thomases to influence SCOTUS rulings I have a timeshare in a posh tropical resort to give you for free.

Afternoon bonus having nothing to do with Clarence Thomas but everything to do with justice, with Trump's Truth Social all caps reaction to being found liable in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit:

Click image to enlarge

Also on the justice is a dish best served cold front:

Exclusive: Rep. George Santos charged by Justice Department in federal probe. CNN

Click to go to main blog. Updates will be posted here rather that on Booksie, Substack, or Medium.

Please add your comment

If you don't see the Disquis comment section click here and scroll to bottom of page.

Boebert promoting anti-trans hate and assault rifles at same time is proof our country has made Satan smile and many are standing at the Gates of Hell

 By Hal Brown

All of these self-righteous Christians who believe they are the godly ones and progressives like us are satanic heathens would, if there really was an all loving all-powerful god inclined to mete out Old Testament justice, would be about to enter through the Gates of Hell where, if they were deemed really worthy of Satan's smile, might actually be greeted by the horned one himself grinning like all get out.

Above: Rodin's Gates of Hell (see enlarged image here) and illustration of the Devil on folio 290 recto of the Codex Gigas, dating to the early thirteenth century (enlarged image here), both public domain. 

I read and was inspired to make the comment (image of my comment here) and copied below:

Greg Abbott Says Focus Is ‘Mental Health Problems,’ Not Gun Reform, After Texas Shooting

How about doing two things? Address mental health problems by 1) increasing MH services and 2) stop politicians and right-wing media from using inflammatory rhetoric and demonizing minorities with hate speech, encouraging violence (this means you Donald Trump), and glorifying assault rifles. That's you Greene and Boebert...

After this is done of course it would be too much to ask Abbott and politicians pandering to the gun fanatics to pass firearm legislation which tiresome as it is to call it is common sense and which most of the county thinks is needed.

Click to enlarge image. HUFFPOST allows pictures in the comments. 
This is what I included in mine.

The most incendiary image above is Boebert holding the t-shirt. Here's a version in black with the direction of the gun reversed from Etsy. Not enough to have an assault rifle, this adds eight bullets. It is pictured with a pair of jeans and significantly with white Converse sneakers. I wonder what Converse thinks about this. 

This is supposedly as normal as American pie... right? No, make that far-right.

The t-shirt being available on Etsy and elsewhere is another matter since it is actually hate speech suggesting, perhaps obscurely, that shooting trans people is fair game.

This slogan has become popular enough for it to be sold by different companies. Click the images below to enlarge them.

Not all pro-gun merchandise targets the LGBTQ+ community... one exception below:

Click image to enlarge

I have no way of knowing how many of the people who buy the pronoun shirts know that the "redefining" part refers to the hate for the LGBTQ+ community and not just support of their view of the 2nd Amendment and it being a pro-gun statement.

There is no doubt that the slogan is anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ in general. It is part of what is called the war on pronouns. For example:

Click above to read article.

Click above to read article

Excerpt:

Florida Republicans on Wednesday approved bills to ban diversity programs in colleges and prevent students and teachers from being required to use pronouns that don’t correspond to someone’s biological sex, building on top priorities of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

If this was merely lunacy calculated to gin up support among the far-right base whose vote is needed for Republicans like DeSantis to win it would be bad enough. It is far worse. It is dangerous fear-mongering that can lead to violence, and not to mince words, to death.

Related:

Click above to read column

Excerpt:

It was another bloody weekend in America's sick and twisted shooting gallery. This time, a man dressed in full tactical gear and carrying an assault rifle got out of his car at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, and started randomly shooting people on the sidewalk. A police officer who was coincidentally on the scene for another call took down the shooter after he had shot 16 people, killing at least 8 and possibly more. (Several people are reportedly still in critical condition.) This is seen as a huge success story among gun fetishists because it shows that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun — with only a dozen and a half casualties. It's what we call "good news" these days.

From the column, listen to Rep. Keith Reid's idiotic and delusional solution:

Addendum: You have to subscribe to The Washington Post to read these articles but from the titles and illustrations you get the idea:

Click above to enlarge image

Click to go to main blog. Updates will be posted here rather that on Booksie, Substack, or Medium.

Please add your comment

If you don't see the Disquis comment section click here and scroll to bottom of page.