Dear Everybody:
The big news today is Trump’s campaign ads that he claims are PSAs.
–We now know that Trump stole the money to pay for those campaign ads of his (and no matter how much he denies it, that’s clearly what they are) from veterans:
–The money for the ads was taken from a fund dedicated to honoring fallen soldiers.
–Trump is directly responsible for the ads. He personally instructed Russell Vought at the Office of Management and Budget to find him money for the ads. (Vought, the brains behind Project 2025, has been doing a lot of this–taking money allocated by Congress for one purpose and using it for another without any authorization to do so.)
–The ads have cost $5.5 million dollars so far. (Not only are the taxpayers paying for these ads, but the veterans were stiffed out of money that was legally theirs.)
–One of the ads is that “So God Made Trump” video that was shown at the Republican midterm convention. I reported on this video when it first aired. The voiceover praised Trump relentlessly, with lines like “I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild…so God made Trump.” (Even though there was a huge outcry about that last part after the video aired, demanding to know when Trump ever delivered a baby, they apparently haven’t bothered to change it.) They also compared Trump to “a shepherd who will never leave us,” a clear comparison of Trump to Jesus.
–The Trump campaign has at least 13 ads already made that they intend to air.
–Trump keeps claiming they are PSAs, but in that case, they’re supposed to be aired for free. These ads are paid for.
Trump has spent the last few days barn-storming around the country giving rambling, incoherent speeches:
–He went to Mobile, Alabama, where eleven years ago, 30,000 people packed a football stadium to see him. Friday he came back to a much smaller arena (10,000) at the University of South Alabama, and he still couldn’t fill it. Multiple photos of the event show that the upper sections were almost completely empty.
–Not to hear Trump tell it: “I went to Tennessee. The crowd went wild…went to Chicago…the crowd went absolutely wild…They asked me to make a speech. I said, ‘I’m not going to make a speech, I want to play golf.’ But I said to him–I mean, they had to stop the crowd from–they were going crazy, 100%.”
–Trump is supposed to be promoting Republican candidates, but he spends almost no time on that. Instead, he veers from topic to topic with no segues between.
–Trump on global warming: “That didn’t work out because the planet got cooler. In fact, you know the ice that was melting? It right now just set a record. It’s the biggest ice cube in the history of the world.”
–Trump, on Venezuela: “If you add Venezuela, we’ll have 58% of the fuel in the world. In order to save a glass of fuel like this–” (He then flung the contents of a glass of water onto the stage.)–“It’s ridiculous. They have computers all over the place, and the other thing is it didn’t work well.” (No idea what he’s talking about.)
–Trump on Iran: “They were nuclear and drug. They were doing drugs, but they were doing nuclear. But these drug factories nuclear factories were hit so bad.”
–Trump on the physical he got from Dr. Ronny Jackson: “He looked me out. He checked me out. I don’t like when men check me out at all. But we didn’t hae to worry about Ronnie. I can tell.”
–He joked about the botched execution in Tennessee.
–He bragged about how he was different from Biden because Biden needed help finding the stairs: “I don’t have that problem, you see. You see how many stairs there. I can go ramp. I can go stair. I can go another stair over there.” (If the intent of this was to convince us he had it more together mentally than Biden, it didn’t really work.)
–Meidas Touch: “Words don’t describe the depths of the lunacy that he just observed.”
–learn: “like watching the train crash in THE FUGITIVE, but much more destructive…stream-of narcissism ramblings.”
One of the most disturbing moments was when Trump called one of his female aides, Margo Martin, up on stage to hug her and fawn over her. Trump: “Martin is known for a number of things. I can’t mention one because if I do, my political career will be over. You can never say that a woman is beautiful. If you say a woman is beautiful, that’s the end of your political career. But I’ll say it anyway. She is a beautiful woman inside and out.”
–Natalie Harp was in the audience watching this. Earlier this week Trump was caught in a photo yelling at Natalie for something which later turned out to be correcting him as to the time of his luncheon, which he didn’t take well.
–Journalist Joanna Coles, watching Trump with Margo Martin (who is frequently mistaken for Melania), said, “I actually feel for Natalie Harp watching that. It seems that he’s trying to pit them against each other, which is something we know he does with his Cabinet.”
–When asked for comment from the White House, Steven Cheung snapped: “Joanna shouldn’t be so jealous. It’s not a good look for her.” (He really is the most loathsome communications director who ever lived.)
In Cornell gang-rape news:
–The lid on the story of seven (or more!) fraternity guys gang-raping a sophomore in their fraternity at Cornell University has just been blown off by a series of revelations, including a major story in the New York Times, which I reported on yesterday.
–Now that the victim has filed a lawsuit against the men and the story’s public, everybody’s scrambling to defend themselves.
–The Ithaca Police Department issued a statement saying they were not informed of the alleged 2024 gang rape and called the claims of the victim “disturbing.”
–Van Houten, the Tompkin County DA has issued a statement that is nothing but a cover-your-ass defense of himself and a complaint that people are calling him and insulting him. he is still defending his decision, saying “The decision that the evidence did not support the filing of criminal charges was legally correct.”
–He says the victim’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” (With seven guys who were texting each other about the ‘free pussy upstairs.’) He claimed it wasn’t the job of him or his office to conduct investigations, that it was only his job to prosecute crimes the police had brought. (the police did in fact ask him to say if he thought a crime had been committed and he said no.)
–He’s mad that the victim nor her lawyers never informed him her statement was incorrect or notified him they were filing a lawsuit.
–He then includes her statement, which clearly shows she was drunk and unable to remember things because of the ketamine and that the men were clearly forcing her (she says she was trying to hide under the covers and stop them from groping and kissing her) and she keeps talking about how she can’t remember lots of what happened. How the DA could come to the conclusion that she was capable of giving full consent and that this wasn’t rape is beyond me.
–Allison Gill said the reading of the DA’s statement “makes my blood boil.”
–andrear9md: “OMG, I do not know how anyone could read the initial description of what happened and say that this was even remotely consensual.”
–christiesmith: “DA goes from coddling college age boys to covering their own ass.”
–The victim’s lawyer: “Not one of these guys was arrested. Not one. I can tell you that for a fact.”
One of the reasons this story has blown up so much is because of the SnapChat exchanges between the fraternity brother while the group rape was ongoing:
–“Free pussy upstairs.”
–“Free pussy in the house.”
–“Free pussy in alum pu. This is crazy work.”
–They sent pictures of her, naked and in a compromising position, one reportedly with the caption, “Free pussy. Walk right in and whip it out.”
–One message had a reference to another member “laying rn”
–“Went 7 min ago and is not afk (away from keyboard) sooooo…”
–“I fucking love Chi Phi. Like you can walk in and whip it out.”
–“Are you guys at least naked?”
–The assaults went on all night, for seven hours, till 5:45 a.m.
–“Shop still open?” “Yea.”
–One of the men, who is denying he committed any crimes, is charged with making the victim snort ketamine off his erect penis while the other men watched.
–The men also poured ketamine onto her naked body and snorted it off.
–The Washington Post’s Monica Hesse: “The descriptions of the assault in the lawsuit are absolutely unspeakable.”
–Victim’s rights lawyer Eric Fudali: “Reading these messages, one could only assume that these fraternity members found nothing wrong with their abhorrent conduct, to the point they were willing to document their crimes in writing. That is one of the more disturbing aspects of this.”
In Trump Destroying the White House news:
–Trump now wants to not only destroy the White House, but make sure no one can fix it after he’s gone.
–Trump claims that when he took office the White House was “a disgraceful dump. The doors were falling off. The locks were broken. And I said, ‘I got to fix it.’ And I do that better than anybody else…This place was in terrible shape. I made it beautiful.”
–He claimed in a Time magazine interview that the Secret Service came to him and said, “Sir, we think the Oval Office should be taken down, and we’ll build a new one, sir. I said, ‘My ass, you can’t build a new one. This is a special place…This beautiful room that nobody should be allowed to rip down. The Oval Office.” (Note: Any story beginning with people coming to Trump and calling him “sir” is totally made up.)
–Trump did not say why the Secret Service wanted to “tear down” the Oval Office, and when asked about this story, the Secret Service declined to comment.
–Trump said he was exploring the possibility of a new federal designation for the Oval Office which would protect it from anyone taking down all the gold tchotchkes he’s put up. Trump: “I’ve been asking Susie for six months to give me a statement. Will we save this room? Will we make it a federal landmark?”
(Note: All presidents are allowed to change the Oval Office for their presidency. In the past that’s meant new curtains, a new rug, and putting up different paintings.)
–rugbymom: “My guess: He’s seen (thanks to Natalie) the social media comments about Day One the next POTUS tearing all the gold doodads off the White House walls, starting with the Oval, and restoring some dignity and class to the people’s building. And he can’t stand the idea of anyone changing his beautiful remodeling.”
–it wasacoup: “He’s going to tear it down, isn’t he?”
–Greg Werkheiser: “The discussion of making it a landmark is legally meaningless.” He questioned why Trump was invoking historical preservation after disregarding it to tear down the White House’s East Wing. “There’s some irony of the president suggesting that he might use historic designation to protect the property after ignoring it so far.”
–Trump has already destroyed the East Wing, paved over the Rose Garden and cut down Jackie Kennedy’s roses and trees, put in a new helipad, repaved the walk along the side of the White House and lined it with photographs and insulting information about former presidents, and now has a tarp over the columns, which he claims to be “repairing,” but which people think he may be changing to Corinthian columns from Doric.
In torture news:
–Tennessee tried to kill a woman convicted of murder, Christa Gail Pike, twice with lethal injections, but they didn’t succeed either time.
–Pike was found guilty of first degree murder for beating, torturing, and killing a fellow Jobs Corps worker when Pike was 18. She committed the crime with her then boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. He was also convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
–The execution was allowed to go forward because of a 6-3 decision by the US Supreme Court granting Tennessee’s request to lift a lower court’s stay of execution, allowing the state to proceed with the administration of Pike’s death sentence before the warrant expired at midnight local time. The court’s majority did not explain its decision.
–The decision came hours after a federal appeals court paused the execution at the 11th hour to review the capital case and determine whether Pike’s allegations of sexual abuse and rape as a child were bully considered before Pike was sentenced to death.
–She is currently unconscious and on a ventilator. Tennessee still plans to execute her as soon as she recovers.
–The governor has interceded and ruled that there will be no more executions until 2027, and he has ordered an independent review.
–Republican governor candidate Marsha Blackburn called on the state to bring back the electric chair.
–Conservative legal analyst John Yoo (who wrote the infamous torture memo for Guantanamo) said Pike has to be executed again. “Tennessee is going to have to go back and try again,” Yoo said, and he suggested, “Why not use a firing squad?” next time.
–The Disabled Activist: “That is psychological torture to follow the physical one she just endured.”
–Lawyer Randy Spivey: “The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity. Last night was not just inefficient. it was cruel and it was torturous.”
In Cracks in the Dam news:
–3-time Trump voter Kris Rouse: Most of the things that he said were going to happen have not happened. The gas has gone up, the groceries have gone up, and my taxes on my property have gone up. I’m a senior citizen on a fixed income
–A Trump supporter said, “It’s hard right now.” She’s had to take a part-time job at a Waffle House to make ends meet. When asked about the $5000 check Trump is promising; “I don’t think we’re going to get anything else from Trump.”
–A woman at a gas station in Mississippi said that she figured half the people around there have turned on Trump.
In other news:
–Trump has hung photos of himself with Putin and Xi in the White House.
–Trump has stopped flying in his big Qatar-gifted plane. The administration has given varying answers for why: it’s being given a “cosmetic upgrade,” “maxing it out so you can take it into any territory,” and fitting it with bigger engines. They said security issues had nothing to do with the decision to stop using it.
In good news:
–A federal judge just ordered the Pentagon to show legal justification for killing 234 people in its boat strikes.
–A federal court has temporarily blocked Trump’s building of a border wall in the Big Bend area of Texas, including on National Park land.
–A federal judge blocked the DHS from acting against a man who sent a harsh email to ICE officials after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed. (The DHS had tracked the man down at his home, at an airport, and at a hotel and served him with a warning notice that he might have violated the law. The federal judge said the DHS had violated the man’s right to free speech.)
Best tweet of the day, from God: “Thou shalt not rape. Thou shalt not put rapists on the Supreme Court. Thou shalt not make rapists the president.”
Best comment of the day, from tampaedski: “I think what we are saying is the public waking up to the nightmare…I said early in Trump’s first term that we progressives were not going to break the fever dream. The element of Trump’s support that still had some rational thought needed to wake up. It seems they have.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
