"Donald Trump was just indicted…but why?"' by Kit Knightly

 

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Source: OffGuardian

Donald Trump was just indicted…but why?

Kit Knightly

Last night it was announced that former-President Donald Trump was being indicted by the Manhattan Grand Jury, he is expected to surrender himself to authorities later today.

The indictment is sealed until arraignment, but we do know the rough nature of the charge(s). Essentially, the accusation is that he paid “hush money” to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels to prevent her from going to the press. CNN is abuzz with anonymous sources “familiar with the case” who are predicting 30-plus charges related fraud, but all that’s really known is that it concerns Daniels’ hush money.

Hush money, in itself, is not technically illegal, but if it could be established that campaign funds were used to make the payment, and Trump knew about it, it would be a felony campaign finance violation.

Yes, a campaign finance violation. That’s all. Much smaller names have had much bigger crimes swept under the rug.

Hell, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was found guilty of the same exact crime over their commissioning the ridiculous “Steele Dossier”. No arrests, just a fine…and they were literally trying to spread misinformation to swing an election.

So why can we expect to see Trump’s mugshot on the front cover of every newspaper tomorrow? Why is Donald Trump the first President to ever be indicted, and not, say, Richard Nixon or George Bush jr?

Well, there are two schools of thought on that subject, or rather two competing narratives.

The liberal media/democrat/Twitter crowd story is that Donald Trump is a dangerous-quasi dictator who attempted a coup in January 2021 and that he should be punished and persecuted for any possible crime in any conceivable way to ensure he never comes anywhere near political power ever again, lest he turn into Literally Hitler.

The Republican/Fox News story is that Joe Biden’s administration – and the political establishment in general – is conducting a witchhunt against Trump to either prevent his running for President in 2024, or so discredit him with the electorate that he cannot win.

Which of these stories is true? Well, neither. Or at least, neither make any sense.

The former is clearly the kind of deranged thinking we’ve all become accustomed to since 2015 first introduced us to Orange Man Bad, and I will waste no time refuting it again.

But the latter is likewise illogical – even if it is at least comparatively grounded in the real world – failing to account for (and/or deliberately ignoring) two important things:

1. Trump’s base will never desert him over this, because they believe it’s a witchhunt. If anything this will solidify his following in certain spheres because it reinforces his “anti-establishment” bona fides.
2. The 2024 Presidential election will be fixed, just like 2020 was.

A more subtle analysis might suggest Trump is being used as a convenient scapegoat to normalise the idea of criminal persecution of political opponents, and while there is probably a little truth to that, it still gives the narrative too much credit, it cedes too much reality to the story.

Because that’s all it is, a story. Political theatre, emphasis very much on the theatre. You know it is, because the Guardian specifically said it wasn’t.

It will entrench both sides, create division and fuel bitter online debates. It will be used to reinforce the illusion of difference between the political parties, or sell the idea that the system works and no one is above the law. To act as fertiliser for more stories down the road, be they further criminal proceedings against Trump, or another “violent insurrection”. Maybe both.

I can guarantee that neither side will be allowed a clean win. Trump won’t be convicted completely, nor will he be exonerated.

If he’s cleared it will be on a technicality, so Republicans can celebrate while Dems can bleat about a broken justice system or how “Trump would be in prison if he was black”. If he’s convicted his sentence will be nothing but a fine, and he won’t be barred from running for office, or he’ll get it overturned by appeal.

It won’t end, it will just keep building on itself. An eternal circus, full of infinite clowns in a neverending pie fight. Pick a side if you want, but you’ll never get anything but messy.

Meanwhile, the real problems persist. The real policies endangering ordinary people – and pushed by Republicans and Democrats alike – will continue to spread. A prison being built up around us.

So, why was Trump indicted?

To give people something to talk about.

"Did They Light Up a Cigarette Afterward?" by James Howard Kunstler

 

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Source: Clusterfuck Nation

Did They Light Up a Cigarette Afterward?

“Reading all the 2016 warnings from the Normalcy Guardians and self-professed Democracy Protectors about how there’s literally nothing more corrupt or dangerous than craving the prosecution of your political opponent — especially for trivial crimes — is really quite something.” — Glenn Greenwald

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   The New York Times enjoyed its long-delayed tantric Trumpgasm so much today that it rolled out the full-page banner headline format usually reserved for the commencement of world wars. (They took the banner down before seven o’clock this morning.) For many of the cat-ladies employed as “reporters” at the once-august paper, it was the first Trumpgasm they’ve ever experienced in a lifetime of emotional displacement, over-eating, and furious knitting of pink polyester hats for the crusade to root out patriarchal wickedness.

     This fulfillment of a years-long psychodrama, starring the feared and loathed occult persona of the gold-coiffed “Daddy” figure who once presided in the political household, came at the hands of dragon-slayer Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, archetype of the many long-oppressed victims worked to death in the bilges of our slave ship of state — now turned righteous Woke deliverer of cosmic vengeance!

      This, of course, is brought to you by the party of hoaxes, flimflams, and mandated death shots, so it’s amusing here on the sidelines to see The Times’s op-ed writers squirm with post-coital pleasure underneath the full-page Trumpgasmic headline. The lead editorial declares: “Even Donald Trump Should Be Held Accountable”— overlooking the utter absence of accountability that has been the norm in every recent insult to the nation’s dignity from wholesale and repeat election fraud, to six years of lawless depravity in the FBI, to overt support of Antifa and BLM street havoc, to the forced, deceitful administration of deadly “vaccines.”

      “How a President’s Arrest Can Strengthen a Democracy,” honorary cat-lady Nicholas Kristoff opined, repeating the bad-faith trope that his legions of Wokery have an interest in political rectitude — when, in fact, they are solely preoccupied with coercing, censoring, cancelling, persecuting, punishing, and defenestrating anyone who objects to their grifts and hustles. “Only love and a leap of faith can break through distrust. That is why a credible form of patriotism is so important right now,” explained The Times’s official Superintendent of Platitudes, David Brooks, to soothe consciences grated by this loutish gambit to shove a political adversary off the game board in advance of an election. “Joe Biden may not be your cup of tea,” Mr. Brooks summed up his civics lesson, “but he’s restored sanity, effectiveness and decency to the White House.”

     Oh, really? That will surely come as news to casual observers who are watching the “Joe Biden” wrecking crew in wonder and nausea as they dismantle every institution and undermine every norm in American life. A more credible form of patriotism would be, say, a general strike against this cabal of degenerates, serving to remind them that at least half of the public still cares about the Constitution, the rule of law, and actual decency (not a depraved simulacrum of it). Otherwise, why would “Joe Biden’s” DOJ lock-up scores of Jan 6 protesters in the DC Jail for years on misdemeanor charges without taking them to law? Why does the “Joe Biden” State Department persist in destroying Ukraine and pounding billions in taxpayer money into the place to accomplish it? Why has the “Joe Biden” regime adopted the drag queen as its mascot? What part of all that evinces “sanity, effectiveness and decency?”

    It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm. A common theme flying across the Web is that Alvin Bragg’s jerry-rigged case will only make a martyr of Mr. Trump, neatly illustrating and personifying the government’s apparent war against its own citizens — making it clear that they will stop at nothing and no one to enforce the corrupt bureaucracy’s will against the public — and that the net result will be to ensure Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024.

      This comes at a time when that government — the “Joe Biden” regime — presides over the collapse of what’s left of America’s economy, the crack-up of the banking system, and the shocking loss of our country’s influence in the geo-political arena. All of that is manifesting as increased general hardship across the US population: a whole lot of citizens going broke, going hungry, losing their property and chattels to bankruptcy, losing their children to Woke-induced psychopathology, and — the final insult — being subjected to a medical racketeering operation that ruins and murders them when they get sick.

     The Party of Chaos looks pretty smugly secure for the moment. If Alvin Bragg’s flimsy case in New York falls apart, as many expect, they have grand juries lined up against Mr. Trump in other jurisdictions, waiting patiently to take their turns at the political assassination of this supposed “threat to our democracy.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared yesterday that Mr. Trump “has the right to prove his innocence.” She apparently forgot how our legal system works, which is that defendants are presumed innocent and it’s the government’s task to prove someone guilty.

     As to qualifications to be president, the Constitution simply states: a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older. There is no language in Article II that might legally prevent someone convicted of a crime, fairly or otherwise, from running for the job.

"An Eastertime Carol" by James Howard Kunstler

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Source: Clusterfuck Nation

An Eastertime Carol

“The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government” — Inscription on the pediment of the Manhattan Criminal Court.

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       After wolfing down a heartburn-inducing Popeye’s Shrimp Tacklebox Combo for supper, Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg retires to his four-poster Sleep Number bed beset with anxiety about the grand jury he has convened for fulfilling his campaign promise to stuff Donald Trump into a state prison cell. From the wall-mounted flat-screen across from his bed, the specter of a of giant rabbit emerges, gaunt and grizzled, draped in chains and weighty padlocks.

     “Who are you, spirit?” Bragg asks.

     “I am the ghost of prosecutions past,” it moans. “This night you will be visited by three other spirits: The ghost of what you wish to be, the ghost of what should be, and the ghost of actually what-it-is.”

      Oh, Gawd,” Bragg groans, his esophagus on fire with acidified hot-sauce residue.

      The DA falls back into a febrile sleep, but wakens minutes later. The bedroom of his condo has transformed itself into a sunny street scene. He is riding an open limousine down Broadway through a blizzard of tickertape, the sidewalks filled with cheering citizens. Beside him sits a nubile person of the birthing persuasion, with supernaturally large infant-feeding glands, not unlike a certain star of adult films at the center of his brilliant case against the former president.

     “I am the ghost of what you wish to be,” she says, her breath warm in his ear. “You’re a bigger star now than ever I was in life, and without all the mess.”

     “Yeah? What’s that up ahead?” he asks.

     “The steps of City Hall where you will receive your Nobel Peace Prize and be handed the nomination for governor, your stepping stone to the White House.”

     “We gonna have to change the name of that place,” Bragg grumbles.

     Suddenly a box appears on Bragg’s lap. It contains two McDonald’s Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddles® plus an apple fritter and a caramel macchiato. No sooner do his teeth close on that first delicious bite, when the confetti in the air turns to pixels, which dissolve along with the street scene, and then Bragg is back in his bed. Laughter rings across the big room, but with a demonic dissonance. A large white man with a silvery mane of hair and a nose like an Appalachian dulcimer, draped in black judicial robes, sits up behind a lofty bench, wearing a scowl of privilege.

      “What do you want?” Bragg asks.

      “Your law license, asshole.”

      “Who do you think you are?”

      “I am the spirit of what should be,” the judge-like figure growls.

      “This is a racist ploy!” Bragg barks back. “Plus, you got no standing!”

      More fiendish laughter from the bench, joined suddenly by a chorus of a million other laughers, people of all sizes, genders, and colors, a collage of Manhattan humanity, each one pointing a finger at Bragg, who retreats in terror under his king-size duvet. The laughter dissolves into Bragg’s own blubbering wails of despair.

      The DA wakes a third time, trembling, to the sound of the doorbell, which he tries to ignore, but it keeps on ringing and ringing. Finally, Bragg kicks off the duvet, plods over to the door, and throws it open. A tall, stout, white man with a mystifying platinum hair-doo stands framed within.

      “DoorDash, at your service,” the ghost of actually what-it-is says.

      “Oh, no….” Bragg cries out, as he is handed a paper bag. He opens it and peers in, only to loose a nauseating stench that instantly fills the room. “Hey, this is not the Build Your Crème Brûlée Pancake Combo from the IHOP,” Bragg complains.

      The DoorDash looks at his phone. “It says here you ordered the shit sandwich.”

      Bragg’s feels like his head will explode. He reaches out to strangle the malevolent specter but wakes up choking his Saatva premium pillow instead. Eventually, he comes back to his senses, but feeling utterly drained from the night’s visitations. He washes the night-sweats away in the shower, dons a fine chalk-strip suit the size of a Coleman six-person tent, and meets his driver waiting at the end of his building’s canopy. In the backseat of his city limo there is a bag with his usual breakfast: two Starbuck’s Double-Smoked Bacon, Cheddar & Egg Sandwiches, a blueberry scone, a glazed donut, and a Starbuck’s Reserve® Hazelnut Bianco Latte. He horses it all down in traffic on the way to the DA’s headquarters on Hogan Place.

      It is Monday morning, of course, roughly a week after the world was expecting him to issue an indictment against former president Donald Trump for writing off payments to a porn star as a campaign expense. But there was much to think about as the week marched along, much to mull over, many options to consider…the future to assess. The office is spookily quiet as Bragg strides in. An attractive blonde of a certain age approaches him warily.

     “Ready to rock and roll, boss?” asks Lisa DelPizzo, Chief of the Trial Division, expecting Bragg to make his historic announcement shortly to the dozens of assembled reporters waiting in the press lobby.

     “Get me a ham sandwich,” he grunts. “And bring it down to the grand jury chamber. We got work to do!”