The Meshugana Mug Shot Megillah

 

Translation from Yiddish:
The Meshugana Mug Shot Megillah

My original title:

Megalomanic Makes the Most of his Mug Shot and how Murdoch's NY Post nails Trump for lying about weight and height at indictment in top website story.

In her wanting to treat Donald Trump just like another other arrestee at the Fulton County Jail Fani Willis managed to help him snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by requiring that his mug shot be taken. She also gave him a parade led by what at my attempt to count them was about 20 blue lights flashing motorcycle officers. 

I haven't seen that many big bikes since I drove to Oregon from Massachusetts and stopped to stay overnight by chance in Elko, Nevada during their annual motorcycle jamboree (below)

A lot is being made in the media about Trump lieing about his height and weight. This was the top of the website story in Murdoch's New York Post:

Click above to read article

By Hal Brown

Heres another Fox News story:

Click to read

The Trump mug shot has dominated the news to such an extent that it already has a detailed Wikipedia entry (here in three parts, click each to enlarge):

It's noteworthy that Wikipedia has pages devoted to discussion as to whether this subject even deserves suhc a distinction saying that the case for this is the the photo will surely becone iconic. 

Articles for deletion/Mug shot of Donald Trump

and

Talk:Mug shot of Donald Trump

I thought we'd finally find out whether or not Trump met the medical definition of being morbidly obese after he was arrested at the Fulton County Jail. I know it is usual for those who are arrested to have their height and weight recorded. 

Morpid obesity is now called class III obesity and is defined as follows:

Class III obesity, formerly known as morbid obesity, is a complex chronic disease in which a person has a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher or a BMI of 35 or higher and is experiencing obesity-related health conditions. The BMI scale is not always accurate, so healthcare providers may use other tests and tools to assess obesity, such as measuring waist circumference.

Class III obesity can contribute to the development of several serious health conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The good news is that class III obesity is manageable and treatable. Reference

It was not to be. The authorities allowed him to report his own height and weight.

Former President Donald Trump lost 25 pounds — and gained an inch of height — since April, according to jail records filed Thursday after he surrendered to Fulton County authorities on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

The 77-year-old’s measurements, which were pre-reported, according to ABC News, indicate that Trump is 215 pounds with a height of 6’3″ —25 pounds lighter and 1 inch taller than when he was booked in Manhattan in April. NY Post article

I found the fact that The New York Post, at least at 5:00 EST, had this as their top story on their website. The article includes several incredulus and sarcastic tweets and comments about this lie and concludes:

“So, he’s lost 25 pounds since he was president is what we are understanding,” CNN host Jake Tapper said, “because he was, I believe, Dr. Ronny Jackson said he weighed something like 242 for his official physical, which people at the time were skeptical of that number.”

Trump’s final physical exam as president, conducted in June of 2020, measured him to be 244 pounds and  6’3’’ tall. Based on body mass index, those measurements would put him in the clinically obese category.

The late night edition of the paper features a full page image of his mug shot. Notable there is the line under the photo with the word "glowers" used to decribe how he looked: "Trump glowers in the first mug shot ever taken of a former president after he was arrested on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 George election."

Click above to enlarge

Did he glower or "strike a glowering pose" that he'd rehearsed in font of a mirror? What's your guess? He knew that the photo would be a big money raiser for him and be use on a wide variety of merch. Do you think he'd just not make sure he was camera ready?

The only glitch in the plan was he didn't prepare for the glaring lighting, possibly a flash, that made his face appear washed out and almost cartoonish.

This is how The Washngton Post decribed the photo in the article 

"Trump’s mug shot is perfectly on brand The former president’s booking photo serves as an official portrait" by their chief film critic:

Once the image was released shortly after Trump’s exit from the jail, it seemed to be mostly of a piece with those of Trump’s rogues’ gallery of co-defendants: banal, badly lit, with the harsh flatness of a drugstore passport snapshot. Dressed in a blue suit with his usual red tie and posed against a gray backdrop, a sullen Trump went with the scowl, glaring up at the camera with beetle-browed fury in a weird mash-up of the 0.5 selfie aesthetic and “Wanted: Dead or Alive” classicism. In the upper left corner, the Fulton County sheriff’s watermark provided the only authorial signature on an otherwise featureless piece of dispiriting iconography.

Trump lied saying he never heard the word mug shot (now universally understood to refer to a booking photo) when speaking before he left Atlanta. He said never heard the words at the Wharton School of Finance. It's impossible anyone who watches as much TV as he does never to have heard  mug shot. As usual he touted going to the presigious Wharton School of Finance at the Ivy Leage University of Pennsylvania. In fact this is a prestigious graduate school and Trump only was an undergradutate transfer student from Fordham there getting a bachelors degree in economics. This is a far cry from getting a graduate MBA degree at one of the top business school in the country. 

For more about this exaggeration read this article:

The Murdoch owned Fox News website had the story about his height and weight this morning but in a less prominent position. Fox News highlighted the mug shot story on the top of their website calling it the "mug shot drama".

Click about to read article about Trump's weight

Less sensational media aren't featuring stories as prominently ahout Trump's mug shot and how he is trying to sell merch with.

The New York City tabloid competing on the newstands and in the kiosks in the anti-Trump Daily News. This is their overnight front page. It also features the mug shot but makes a strong editorial comment.

The New York Tmes had a story about the mug shot but far down their main page:

Click to read (subscription)

Excerpt: As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.

As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.

“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.

The only glower that came near to Trump's for gloweryness was Rudy's:

Jenna Ellis looked like she was posing for the high school yearbook photo she missed since she and her two brothers were homeschooled by their parents (Reference):

More of the photos and various ways each person tried to pose:

Read the HUFFPOST article about each of the people pictured above.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who will have the most famous mug shot of them all?

Click to enlarge

Addendum:

Whether Trump's Twitter (X) return was a triumph or a twizzler tease reamins to be seen. No doubt he'll have a bigger audience than he had on Truth Social. It will open him to having less than lauditory replies posted in atrticles like this one from HUFFPOST:

Trump's First Tweet In Years Is Being Mocked For 1 Truly Awkward Mistake

The former president returned to the platform for the first time since he was banned in January 2021.

I never joined Truth Social (it requires an email and phone number) so now I can post my own replies to what Trump puts on social media - maybe some will be republished.

Now we are learning that

Trump shakes up potential Truth Social merger with return to ex-Twitter...

I like that term ex-Twitter, aka known as X Twitter. Stay turned...

Moscow murders make Milwaukee murders look lame: Putinym Вот что будет, если трахаться с Путиным

 

If you don't read Russian you'll have to read the blog to get the translation 
of my title above.

By Hal Brown

By the time I finished watching the season two finale of "Only Murder  in the Building" (see yesterday's blog: Murders in Milwaukee vs. Murders In The Building: What I'll Be Watching Tonight) and turned on the news I learned that when it came to making the news with a dramatic story Putin had won the night.

As you can see from the screen grab of the BBC website above the presumed Putin Prigozhin assassination bumped the GOP debate and Trump's legal troubles off as the top story. I think this is indicatve of the international perspective of what is the most improtant news to cover.

Fox News, in contrast, relegated the story to a minor spot:

The New York Times prioritized the debate story online...

... but dropped it to the very bottom of the print edition front page:

Click above to enlarge image

The Washington did the same with their online and their print editions:

I undertand why local media puts American news on as the top story but I think the Russia story is equally important, an opinion reflected by the editors of the print edtion of The NY Times.

Anyway you look at it, there were two major stories last night.

The plane being shot down came with an amazing video which makes it a compelling story for television.

Click above to view with real life commentary

The caught on video amazing assassination - although one is foolish to be amazed by it - came before the debate and was referred to when Nikki Haley accused Ramaswarmy of "choosing a murderer" for saying supporting Ukraine is not a "priority for the United States."

From the debate:

“Look what Putin did today, he killed Prigozhin,” Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s former governor said Wednesday night during the first Republican party presidential candidate for the 2024 election after being asked how she would respond to the war in Ukraine if she were elected. 

She continued, “When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died. This guy is a murderer. And you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country.” Reference.

From HUFFPOST

 U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley landed perhaps the biggest blow against Ramaswamy during a heated exchange over aid to Ukraine. Ramaswamy argued that U.S. support for Ukraine against Russian aggression should be used for defending the U.S. border instead.

“You are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country. ... You would make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows. It shows,” Haley said, drawing an eruption of applause from the debate audience. 

The broadside is the closest Haley has come to a breakout moment during the race so far. The former South Carolina governor has struggled to gain traction in early nominating states.

In terms of sheer drama a group of GOP president wannabes shouting over each other watching a plane carrying 10 people presumably including the leader of the Wagner Group and his chief deputy being blown out of the sky and crashing and burning (see more video and photos on Newsweek here) was literally a murder in Moscow (literally somewhere 30 minutes north of Moscow on its way to St. Petersburg).

Not only is this being reported as a murder in Moscow but there is also a possible mystery in Moscow because there are some questions being asked whether Prigozhin himself staged this assassination so he could disappear and live out his life in some safe haven. 

If he managed to do this Putin could probably find him and get rid of him for sheer vengeance but he wouldn't be able to make it public. Although the psychopath would like to look Prigozhin in the eyes telling him that vot chto sluchilos', kogda ty trakhalsya Putinym as he shot or poisoned him he'd have to settle for a live video.

Either way it's a win for Putin. He shows that anyone who dares staging a coup against him is signing their own death warrant and will be subject to a public execution. In fact, this is what it was called on MSNBC's Morning Joe just after I typed these words. They added that it seems more than a coincidence that someone was their to take a video of it as if it was staged for television.

The candidates merely metaphorically murdered, or attempted to murder each other. There was, or might have been, a real murder which demonstrates why President Biden's firm support of Ukraine is vital to democracy.

Ironically, while none of the GOP candidates in the debate won the night it is fair to say that both Biden (thanks to Putin) and Putin himself, albeit in very different ways, can claim to have come out victorious.

Addendum:

I am hearing comments on MSNBC saying that the timing of the crash might be relevant in that it came exactly two months after Prigozhin moved his troops towards the Kremlin. I would suggest that while Putin wanted to "celebrate" the two month anniversary he also might have wanted to provide must-see American counter programming to the GOP debate. If Trump thought his own Tucker interview would be good counter-programming, Putin certainly outdid him.

Afternoon update: 

As far as news: on The Washington Post website the Russia story is on the top of the page, the pending Trump arrest second, and the debate third:

Murders in Milwaukee vs. Murders In The Building: What I'll Be Watching Tonight

 

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist and mental health center director

If you know me through this blog or know me personally you know I am passionate about politics. Even as I type this I have "Morning Joe" on TV and I've already reviewed the breaking poltical news on Raw Story, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

I am also very much aware that it is vitally important for my own, and everyone's, mental health to maintain a balance in life and monitor one's stress level and assure you aren't debilitated by worrying about politics.

All of my friends and aquaintances are mostly very liberal Democrats with a few who are old fashioned Republicans who are appalled at what the GOP has become since MAGA became it's mantra. Among them I know people who find that they have to asiduously ignore poltical news about the threat of autocracy should Trump or another authoritarian becomes president.

When I'm with the latter group I know not to broach the subject of politics. Some of them have even told me that they don't want me to talk about it when I am in their company.

I understand this. Everyone does well to understand what level of worry they can handle. I've been told by a few people that even thinking about politics raises their blood pressure. Some of them know. They've checked.

One of the things I hear is the "why worry about something I can't do anything about" question. I'm not about to lecture anybody about finding something to do, whether it's volunteering in a campaign or donating money to a candidate or cause. What I've said is that if you find yourself stressed out about politics is that it often helps to talk about the subject with like-minded friends. 

For me in addition to talking about politics I write about it in my blog and comments to articles.* I talk about it to a those friends who share my interest.  This is stress relief for me. I know sharing my opinions has a minimal impact in the greater scheme of things, but at least I feel I am doing something.

It seems like a no-brainer, and there's even a book Stress Management for Dummies, but a good way to handle stress is to make a list, mental or actually written, of the things you do that provide you the most enjoyment. Then add to the list things that you've considered doing but for whatever reasons haven't done. 

You can divide fun into passive and active fun if this makes sense to you. You can list the things that you enjoy doing in your home and things you have to leave your abode to do. You can rate them by the effort it takes to engage in an activity. Ask yourself if making an extra effort might be worth it.

This is part of dealing with worry stress by compartmentalizing.  This is what I try to do. It's isn't always easy and I know will become exceedingly difficult, but will really be necessary if Trump or another of his ilk get elected president.

I was a Boy Scout and am familiar with their motto:

The Girl Scouts have the same motto:

These are good words to try to live by.

Here's what my partner and I be doing tonight if you haven't already figured this out. We are into the second season of "Only Murders In The Building" and would rather see how Charles, Oliver, and Mabel figure out whodunnit and how and why they dunnit than watch eight bloviating Republicans only one of whom is entertaining (Chris Christi of course).

Read reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Footnote:

* The subscrption New York Times and Washington Post as well as HUFFPOST and Raw Story have active comment sections. HUFFPOST allows you to add images to comments as does Raw Story which use Disquis (as does this blog) which allows one to insert images.

For example this is my comment to the Raw Story article 

Busted: Internal emails show Secret Service agent was in contact with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes

Click above to enlarge

Could Trump avoid legal peril and go live in Russia, Russia, Russia as Vlad's roomie?

 

I superimposed Trump's plane over a photo of Moscow Airport Terminal C.

"The failed District Attorney of Fulton County (Atlanta), Fani Willis, insisted on a $200,000 Bond from me. I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a 'flight' risk – I’d fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir, never to be seen or heard from again. Would I be able to take my very 'understated' airplane with the gold TRUMP affixed for all to see. Probably not, I’d be much better off flying commercial – I’m sure nobody would recognize me!"

By Hal Brown 

The above Truth Social post is Trump's attempt at showing how unseriously he takes his legal situation and what a great comedy writer he is and is about as close as he ever comes to self-depricating humor and an awareness of his grandiose narcisism.

What Trump doesn't "get" about the bond is that it doesn't prevent him from leaving, or fleeing, the country to live in Russia, Russia, Russia. He can blow off the $200,000 and leave the country to live with Vladimir.

Where he'd actually live would have to be determined as Putin has eight official residences (read article).

 He might live in his suite (pictured below) where the ceilings have their share of gold.

One of the bedrooms in the Black Sea mansion known as Putin's Palace

Putin's $1.4 billion Black Sea compound is non-too-shabby (Link):

Putin apparently spends much of his time in a mansion in Valdai which is 240 miles from Moscow and has no airport so I assume he'd travel to and from the Kremlin by helicopter.

Putin's bedroom in his residence in Valdai on Lake Valdayskoye

Putin does not actually live in the actual Kremlin the way US presidents live in the White House so Trump could end up living at another of his residences. Putin reportedly spends much of his time in the Novo-Ogaryovo estate in Moscow which has been unofficially termed his de facto residence.

If he wants to end up a Putin's most famous houseguest he'll first have to convince the murderous dictator, who might have to convince his girlfriend gymnast Alina Kabaeva, to have him as a permanent roomie. 

Of course the judge could order him not to leave the country, and order his passport (or passports, he has said he has three) seized.  I don't know exactly how he could fly out of the country in his own plane illegally, but if he managed to sneak onto his plane and it took off on the way to Russia I doubt the Air Force would shoot it down even if it had a fleeing felon onboard.

What the bond does do is described here:

The bond agreement, known as a consent bond order, sets strict rules for Trump’s release. The former president is not allowed to communicate with witnesses or co-defendants about the case, except through his lawyers, and he is barred from intimidating witnesses or co-defendants. He is also forbidden from making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community,” including in “posts on social media or reposts of posts” by others on social media.

“The defendant shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him … to be a co-defendant or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice,” the agreement says. (Washington Post)

If he violates the conditions of the bond agreement as by now everyone who has been following this case knows there are actions that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee can take to punish him from levying fines up to putting him in jail.

Most people, probably including Trump himself, don't think Judge McAfee would take such a final step. 

As noted in Raw Story "former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen doesn't think the ex-president will be capable of complying with the bail conditions set in Fulton County, Georgia. Still, he anticipates that Trump will only get a slap on the wrist."

This doesn't mean that there's no way Trump can be certain he won't eventually end up incarcerated. He could end up in a Georgia prison and the only way he can be certain he won't be imprisoned for a federal crime is if a Republican is elected president and decides to drop the cases against him or pardon him.

If he does end up doing time at a Club Fed and Biden is president there's always the chance Biden would pardon him but then he'd have to admit guilt and accept the ultimate favor from the man he despises.

Let's say that Trump makes it to Russia and takes up residence there. As long as Putin is in power I don't see him allowing him to be extradited. If Putin is replaced a new leader might send him back to the United States to face charges.

What the United States might be able to do is freeze as many of his assets as possible. This might make a large dent in the money available to him depending on how much has has in foreign accounts in countries that won't cooperate with the US justice system. 

Trump might have tried to take actual cash or valuables like Melania's jewelry with him to sell since the government now has the documents he stole so he couldn't sell them. He'd somehow have to get ahold of as many suitcases full of $100 bills as he could if he wanted cash.

Although he won't get that much, he could sell a kidney. The most recent report I could find on this says he could get between one and five million rubles ($14,300 - $73,000).

The easy way for Trump to make it to Russia, Russia, Russia is to board his plane on a flight meant to go to Atlanta or between Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago for example and have it fly to one of his Russkie pal's pads instead.

For those who suggest that there's no pilot who would agree to fly Trump out of the country illegally consider that he wanted his personal pilot John Duncan  (bleow) to be made the head of the FAA. If he wouldn't do it I think he could find another pilot sufficiently loyal to do this for the right price.

One last thought: there is something the judge, any ot the jduges in his cases, can do that that might bother Trump short of throwing him in the hoosecow. They could confiscate his plane.

Of course he could ask Harlan Crow to have him flown out of the coutnry on his  Bombardier Global 5000 jet (below). 

Crow himself might like living in a mansion on the Black Sea, and while I am in a flight of fancy, perhaps Clarence and Ginni Thomas might also move there.