Tom of Temecula
Tom of Temecula's Journal'Most damning evidence' yet unveiled by Trump's prosecutors
Prosecutors in New York on Monday showed a series of documents that Daily Beast reporter Jose Pagliery described as "the most damning" yet seen in former President Donald Trump's Manhattan hush-money trial. The documents related to the Trump Organization's scheme to reimburse former Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen for shelling out hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
As described by MSNBC's Katie Phang, one showed Trump Organization officials making calculations on a piece of paper with the Trump Organization letterhead about how to pay back Cohen. In total, the Trump Organization paid Cohen back a total of $420,000 over the span of a year in $35,000 monthly increments.
It was these payments that prosecutors alleged were falsely logged as legal expenses when in reality they were an illegal campaign contribution made by Cohen to ensure that damaging information about Trump did not come out ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
"We're seeing the white corporate notepad that says TRUMP at the top," marveled Pagliery in a post on Twitter. "It shows the coverup math. This is the most damning evidence we've seen so far."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-trial-testimony-2668175394/
Georgia Republican running for Congress openly 'embracing' his role in Jan. 6 riot
Georgia resident Chuck Hand is among the many Donald Trump supporters who faced federal charges after breaking into the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. Now, the MAGA Republican is running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2022, Hand and his wife, Mandy Robinson-Hand, pled guilty to misdemeanor charges for illegally demonstrating inside the Capitol. And both of them were sentenced to 20 days in federal prison, along with six months of probation.
Hand is seeking the GOP nomination to run against incumbent Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop in Georgia's 2nd Congressional District). And according to Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reporter Greg Bluestein, he is "embracing" his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building — not trying to "run away" from it.
"Hand is far from the only candidate involved in the pro-Trump mob on January 6 to seek public office," Bluestein reports. "There are at least a half-dozen others across the nation, according to an NBC News tally, including contenders in races in Arizona, Missouri, Texas and West Virginia. And in Georgia, a right-wing activist who organized a pro-Trump demonstration in Washington that preceded the violent mob is seeking a key party post." Bluestein adds, "Amy Kremer is challenging Ginger Howard to serve as one of Georgia's members of the Republican National Committee."
Karen Owen, who teaches political science at the University of West Georgia, believes that Hand's role in the January 6, 2021 riot could help rather than hurt his chances with GOP primary voters in his district.
https://www.alternet.org/jan-6-hand-bishop/
Latest Campaign Data Shows Biden Replicating His 2020 Election Win Against Trump
New polling from ABC News and Ipsos suggests that President Joe Biden will replicate his 2020 election win against former President Donald Trump in their expected rematch later this year.
Among likely voters, Biden led by four percentage points — almost directly on par with the national margin by which he led in the final results from 2020. Though polling comes with the usual caveats, like the limitations of making resolute predictions from small margins and the role of the electoral college in eventually selecting the next president, national numbers can still provide somewhat of a barometer for a given presidential race’s eventual outcome.
The numbers all rebuff the predictable idea from Trump’s corner that the ex-president-turned-criminal defendant is actually seeing soaring success in polling from the latest presidential race. Consistently, the portrait actually given by polling is more mixed, suggesting a close outcome.
In the meantime, Trump continues facing criminal trial proceedings in New York City that are set to continue again this week with additional courtroom testimony. So far, jurors have heard throughout the prosecution’s initial presentations from witnesses including tabloid media figure David Pecker and longtime Trump ally Hope Hicks, in terms of the more well-known of those appearing. Trump is charged with falsifying business records in connection to hush money from before the 2016 elections, and one legal expert — Norm Eisen, a frequent face on CNN — characterized Hicks’ testimony as especially damaging in relation to that.
https://bipartisanreport.com/2024/05/06/latest-campaign-data-shows-biden-replicating-his-2020-election-win-against-trump/
'Nuts And Clearly Disturbed': New RFK Jr. Spot Has Absolutely Bonkers Opening
Critics are wondering how and why this new video from the independent presidential candidate ever got released. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spends the first minute and change of his new promotional video trashing an unexpected candidate: himself. The new 30-minute spot features the independent presidential candidate reading attacks on himself, almost like a Jimmy Kimmel “Mean Tweets” segment. But instead criticism from randos on social media, Kennedy reads attacks from analysts, pundits and media critics.
“He’s nuts and clearly disturbed, The Standard,” Kennedy reads. “Kennedy is a humorless bully living in a paranoid fantasy, Vanity Fair. What the fuck is wrong with Bobby Kennedy?” Kennedy reads critics slamming him as a crank and conspiracy theorist. “I wouldn’t vote for that guy, either,” says Kennedy.
Much of the rest of the video is narrated by actor Woody Harrelson, who attempts to reintroduce the candidate by painting him as an environmentalist and outdoorsman ready to take on corporate interests. “He was kinda like Erin Brockovich,” Harrelson says, referring to the environmental activist. “But a Kennedy.”
Most of Kennedy’s own family has endorsed President Joe Biden, as have a number of his environmentalist colleagues. An ad from the Natural Resources Defense Council says Kennedy has been “spinning anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, denying science” and urges him to drop out of the race. But it’s the wild opening minute of his new video that has people talking on social media:
https://twitter.com/realRFKJr/status/1786515965183770811
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-f-kennedy-jr-nuts-video_n_663873c8e4b03d2898dd826b
'Trump Diapers; For When You're Losing Your Sh*t' - Lincoln Project dumps on Donald 'diaper' in new ad
Do you smell what the Lincoln Project is cooking? A new spot takes aim at what’s supposedly inside Donald Trump’s pants. “We know Donald ‘Von ShitzInPants’ Trump will hate that this commercial is going to be seen by all his top donors this weekend as they do Apprentice-style tryouts with potential Vice Presidential picks,” said Rick Wilson, Lincoln Project co-founder. “He’s farting and falling asleep in the courtroom because he’s lost control of his faculties.
When his donors see this ad, they will see him for what he is: weak and feeble.” Thankfully, the ad lacks a scratch-and-sniff component as it explores the prospect of the former President sitting in a New York courtroom and pooping his pants, benefiting from “Trump diapers.”
Those are described in the ad as the “elite adults’ incontinence product for owning libs on the go when you’ve got to go,” and in an accompanying Lincoln Project email as the perfect accessory when one must “spend hours in a freezing courtroom when the judge won’t let you use the restroom every time they scare the shit out of you.”
This is at least the second spot to focus on the former President’s alleged pungency. As The Hill reported, the Lincoln Project’s “Limburger” from 2023 included images of “notoriously foul-smelling scenes, including garbage dumps, animal feces, dirty diapers and moldy cheese” and featured comedian Kathy Griffin saying Trump smelled like “body odor” tinged with “scented make-up.”
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/672628-trump-diaper/
RFK Jr. Is Quickly Becoming A Political WMD Wiping Out Trump
The latest ABC News poll showed that Trump’s RFK Jr. problem is growing and worsening daily.
ABC News reported on their poll, “Kennedy gets 12% even though 77% of his supporters say they know “just some” or “hardly anything” about his positions on the issues. Notably, his supporters are more apt to be Republicans or GOP-leaning independents (54%) than Democrats and Democratic leaners (42%, a slight difference given sample sizes), and in a two-way race, they favor Trump over Biden by 13 points. That may explain why Trump attacked Kennedy as a stalking horse in social media posts last week.”
RFK Jr. has been shifting his positions to the right, getting favorable treatment in conservative media, and worrying the Trump campaign. Donald Trump is facing a challenge he has never faced before. RFK Jr. is challenging him from the right. Trump is only campaigning one day a week and spending most of his time in court while his campaign resources are being spent on legal bills.
Trump does not have the resources or ability to fend off a challenge for the voters that the ex-president is attempting to keep in his camp. The same ABC poll found that up to 20% of Republicans may stop supporting Donald Trump if he is convicted of a felony. Trump’s RFK Jr. problem is turning into a crisis, because if the ex-president is convicted of a felony, the voters he loses within the Republican Party now have somewhere else to go, and they are clearly locked in on Kennedy.
https://www.politicususa.com/2024/05/05/rfk-jr-is-quickly-becoming-a-political-wmd-wiping-out-trump.html
Trump escalates attacks on prosecutors, says Democrats run 'a Gestapo administration'
Former president Donald Trump escalated his attacks on prosecutors at a private luncheon here Saturday, referring to special counsel Jack Smith with an expletive and accusing Democrats of “running a Gestapo administration,” according to audio provided by a Republican donor.
Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.
He called Smith — who is prosecuting federal cases involving Trump’s handling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — a “f---ing a--hole.” He continued to mock another prosecutor, District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) of Georgia’s Fulton County, for her past relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, calling her “Mrs. Wade” and “a real beauty.” The former president also told the crowd at his Mar-a-Lago Club that he was surprised when he got indicted.
“Once I got indicted, I said holy s---, I just got indicted. Me, I got indicted. In fact, Lara, if she knew I got indicted, she probably wouldn’t have joined the family,” he said, referring to the wife of his son Eric. “I got indicted like Alphonse and like all these people,” a reference to the gangster Al Capone.
Trump — who faces 88 criminal charges in four separate state and federal cases — has made attacks on prosecutors a central part of his bid for a return to the White House and has repeatedly claimed without evidence that he is the victim of a weaponized legal system. Saturday’s remarks illustrated the central role his legal cases are playing in his bid to return to the White House for a second term, even in a private setting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/04/trump-indictments-attacks-democrats-gestapo/
Trump complained donors aren't giving him enough cash to get a picture taken with him
At the same donor luncheon at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Saturday where Donald Trump swore at President Joe Biden, special counsel Jack Smith and attacked his other perceived foes, the former president also complained he wasn't raising enough cash from the attending wealthy donors.
Buried deep in a Washington Post report of the former president's profanity-laden speech where he ranted about Biden's "Gestapo" and called the DOJ's Smith a “f-----g a--hole,” is a note that the former was not happy about having to have his picture taken with so many attendees. Add to that, he also let some of his guests know they weren't coughing up enough cash.
According to the Post, "About 400 people who gave at least $40,000 each attended, according to people familiar with the planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private event. He spoke for about 90 minutes, and the remarks veered widely," before pointing out Trump's complaints.
"At another point, he complained about having to take so many pictures with donors and told people in the crowd that if they didn’t get a picture, it was because they didn’t give enough money," the report continued. "He also claimed that a wedding at the property got preference over the donors because the wedding was paying more per person to be there."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-donor-cash/
'Spotlight the sleaze': Trump prosecutors are 'captivating the jury' in hush money trial
According to multiple legal observers, prosecutors overseeing the 34-felony count hush money trial of Donald Trump in a Manhattan courtroom are doing an excellent job of getting the jury's attention after two weeks of testimony.
With the testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and ex-White House aide Hope Hicks, members of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office have brought to the forefront the more lurid elements of the case that involves not only paying off adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election, but also how the former president worked hand-in-hand with Pecker to smear his rivals.
According to a report from the New York Times, a prosecution strategy to "spotlight the sleaze" is paying off for the prosecution. "By foregrounding the conspiracy, prosecutors are captivating the jury while laying a foundation for evidence about the business records to emerge. As soon as next week, prosecutors are expected to begin connecting the dots between the smut and the substance," the Times is reporting. According to Marc F. Scholl, who worked for decades in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, "It was a smart way to start the case."
Former federal prosecutor Steven M. Cohen agreed, telling the Times, "The fundamental truth is that you take your witnesses as you find them, and inevitably the sleazy, unethical and dubious conduct that was carried out by the witnesses will leave them vulnerable to attack by the defense. But those witnesses will no doubt be quick to remind the jury that they were not the authors of that conduct. Mr. Trump was.”
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-hush-money-sleaze/
Ivanka Trump Is Plotting Her Return To The White House
All the media talk about Ivanka Trump breaking with her father and distancing from her father turned out not to be true, The daughter of the ex-president has always played the willing to assist corporate media with PR and spin that suggested that she was different from her father, or a stabilizing and moderating force,
The truth which was reported by Tara Palmeri at Puck paints a much different picture: Now, with the campaign in high gear, Ivanka is “warming to the idea of trying to be helpful” again, I’m told by a person familiar with her thinking. “[She’s] privately not ruling out having some sort of role,” this person continued. “She’s not like ‘Hell no’ anymore.”
The role itself, and her potential involvement with the campaign, remains unclear. Ivanka has been quietly surveying members of her inner circle about when it might make sense to re-engage with the campaign—and even whether to take a job in the administration if Trump wins.
She’s been advised to wait until the Republican convention, in mid-July, so as to avoid the news cycle around her father’s trial—the first of four currently on the docket. But the chatter surrounding her inquiries appears to be a trial balloon, of sorts, telegraphing what is likely to be a gradual re-entry into Trump’s political orbit. “After a longstanding position of ruling it out, she’s more open to it,” said the source familiar with her thinking. “It’s getting more real, it’s revving up.”
https://www.thedailypoliticususa.com/p/ivanka-trump-is-plotting-her-return
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Oct 31, 2023, 11:15 AMNumber of posts: 1,252
