The former president had to experience some average human things during jury selection for his criminal trial this week and handled it with about as much grace and dignity as one might expect. Things like, being cold: “I am sitting here for days now, from morning until night in that freezing room,” he complained to reporters Thursday. “Everybody was freezing in there! And all for this. This is your result. It is very unfair.” Also, being tired: he’s full-on fallen asleep at least twice now during proceedings, and even let out a few snores on Friday, according to reporters in the room.
Prosecutor: “We are not supplying the names of the witness to a defendant who contumaciously” assails witnesses on social media. The judge calls that explanation compelling.
I wonder what effect listening to opening arguments on Monday will have on TFG?
It could be an interesting morning.
(Happy 420 today to those who observe!)
The piece about Flynn in conjunction with the story about the Berlusconi movie illustrates something the media have studiously avoided – maybe because young J-school grads are too dumb and immature to see it, or maybe because corporate media is in on the caper.
It’s that all right-wing movements internationally (but especially in the US) are only partly political movements. At bottom they’re all about grift, separating the rubes from their money via cheap, homemade DVDs, tawdry, made-in-China apparel and other trash, and so forth. It’s inseparable from the carnival-barker/pro wrestling tradition in the uneducated part of America, and also the Elmer Gantry-Billy Sunday-televangelist school of fundamentalist Christianity.
TPM reporters could maybe ignite a national story if they went on tour with Flynn or some other wingnut celebrity and examined the merch on sale. Check the labels and see how much of the kitsch is made in China (I’m betting most of it). It would be an interesting counterpoint to their America First, Sinophobic rhetoric.
Oh great, ANOTHER one of those fever-brained layouts showing “shadowy” connections between government agencies. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but not every government action is part of a great conspiracy.
I dunno. I think the listener deserves some blame (or credit).
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute,” he said, incorrectly and insanely. “One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”
It is amazing to see how, every day, the Defendant’s chief lawyer, Todd Blanche, keeps socially distancing himself more and more from his client. Embarrassment? Smell? Spittle? I hope he got himself a retainer with pay up front, and a bonus for working in a hazardous environment. Trump isn’t going to pay him after this trial.
