'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
Yes. It is a colossal disappointment, but facts are facts.
Precisely!
Mighty sure there was kompromat that effectively worked as blackmail for trump 1.0. Now 2.0 after the Supremes threw a lifeline, it’s painfully obvious that the senate won’t impeach, his cabinet way too new and not yet going under the guillotine to even think about the 25th amendment, musk shock and awe, wall street hasn’t tanked (really surprising to me), ad nauseum; whatever kompromat Putin had over 1.0 has largely evaporated.
The bromance is beyond a constitutional crisis, trump is committing high treason and musk a coup and/or high treason.
Where are the leaders that actually meant it when they said: I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Bought and paid for, even a surprising number of Democrats.
Stranger
When I’m attempting to capture a castle I want it to have weaker defences. Trump wants smaller government in that way.
Once I have captured and am occupying the castle, I want it to have stronger defences serving me. Trump wants larger government in that way.
What could they do, realistically?
They could impeach Trump, convict him, and remove him from office. They realistically could do that. But they won’t, because they’re bought and paid for.
The Democrats? At least show a cohesive if token resistance. There are like five Democrats actively and energetically speaking out, a bunch just doing performative handwringing but not putting themselves out, and then a number of open collaborators hoping that their demonstration of fealty will allow them to be included in the political spoils like John “That Fucking Quisling” Fetterman. If there were ever a time for a last stand it is now, and of course it is the progressive wing carrying all of the load while Harris keeps sending out “Fight Fund!” appeals for money to disappear into some black hole of campaign finance.
The rest of them, i.e. the supposedly “non-crazy” non-MAGA Republicans? Form an alliance which takes majority control of both houses of Congress, impeach, convict, and remove Trump (for real this time, Susan Collins), and when Trump refuses call him out for the traitor he is and we’ll get to see where people in government stand when faced with an unambiguous Constitutional crisis against “all enemies, foreign and domestic”. They won’t because they are opportunistic cowards who would rather gain some fleeting and transitory ‘victory’ now than stand up for actual principles that they have long abandoned if they ever sincerely held them to begin with.
Stranger
He can’t be blackmailed because the sheepies will not hold any transgression against him. If the “pussy” tape didn’t destroy him, nothing will. He knows it and cannot be blackmailed.
But remember; it is not just Trump. Vance, Musk, the entire 2025 group, they are all in it.
In a mathematical, rigid logic sort of way, that’s certainly true. “Bill is a mean man. Ergo, Bill did not answer the woman’s question about how to find the supermarket, no confirmation needed.”
But I’m not confident that we can or should trust that humans act in such clear cut and consistent manners.
Trump has no shame. That seems true.
He also has an on-the-books fixer that pays off people to keep them from saying things that he doesn’t like. He forces his employees to sign NDAs, agreeing to not say anything negative about him or his companies. He has sued people over the question of whether he raped his previous wife, and there’s reason to believe that she was paid to deny the story.
Trump is willing to accept a level of insults, that keep his name in the news. This is especially true, if it makes him seem mean, cruel, but powerful. He’s less excited about being viewed as a rapist, a pedophile, improverished, unfaithful, etc.
We would need to know the truth of everything to know what he has no shame over, and which shames him deeply.
He was also convicted on 34 counts of felony fraud for covering up a one night stand. So, obviously he cares what people think about him. Yes, you might say that there was a purpose behind that; he (and probably advisors as well) were concerned that it might tank his campaign during the 2016 election. But that’s not really relevant; it doesn’t matter why he is concerned about his misdeeds seeing the light of day, what matters is that sometimes he does care, for whatever reason.
In other words, we have 100% solid concrete proof that the man does not have some mythical immunity against blackmail, that it’s not true that he never cares what gets out about him. We have proof that sometimes he does care, sometimes he’ll go to extreme lengths to cover it up.
No idea if this is BS or not, but it belongs here:
Alnur Mussayev, 71, a former head of intelligence in Kazakhstan and before that a Soviet KGB officer, made the explosive claim in a Facebook post on Thursday. He claimed that he served in the 6th Directorate of the KGB in Moscow, which was responsible for counter-intelligence support within the economy. One of its key objectives, he claimed, was “recruiting businessmen from capitalist countries.”
The link is 404. I did a search, and it turned up; as did a link to Yahoo. Clicking on the Yahoo link took me to the home page, not an article.
Here is the article I read years ago:
Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into politics.
The ex-major recalled: “For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.
“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”
Yes, I actually posted that one. But then I found the The Guardian article from years ago and changed my post.