Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas.  That old adage was never more true than when it comes to TFG in ANY endeavor.  Let’s take the cases of Andy Litinsky and Will Wilkerson, co-founders of TFG Media & Technology, the owner of Truth Social, the Twitter of racists, insurrectionists, and weirdos.  When the company was founded, Trump demanded 90% of the stock for the use of his name and his occasional involvement.  Classic TFG, taking almost all the money for doing nothing.

But it gets worse.  According to Wilkerson’s SEC whistleblower report, last year, after the company launched, TFG called Litinsky and demanded he gift some of his company stock to Melania.  That’s right, he actually demanded that the president of the company give up his stock to TFG’s wife.  This is also classic TFG – 90% of OPM (Other People’s Money) is not enough.  He wants it all.  Litinsky refused, pointing out not only how absurd the idea was but that it would trigger a large tax bill.  Nonetheless, TFG persisted in his demand, ultimately removing him from the board 5 months later.  Litinsky has hired lawyers to sue the company.

Wilkerson, who was a senior vice president at the time, filed a whistleblower complaint against TFG with the SEC and then gave an interview to the Washington Post.  The company fired him the next day in retaliation, which is also illegal.  It goes without saying that the SEC is investigating.

I know of no one who’s worked for, or done business with TFG who has benefitted from the relationship.  Trump cheats, steals, and intimidates everyone around him.  Talk about fleas; if a person stays with him, the results are generally not good, and can ultimately lead to fleas like jail time and financial ruin.  And yet people follow him and do his bidding.

It is truly bewildering.

This afternoon, the SCOTUS issued a one sentence rebuke of TFG in his efforts to hamstring the DOJ investigating his theft of thousands of government documents.  The order, one sentence long, said:

TRUMP, DONALD J. V. UNITED STATES

The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.

Even the SCOTUS can occasionally surprise by doing its goddam job.

Earlier this week the NYTimes published an investigative story that had several revelations including an account of TFG demanding that yet another lawyer lie for him early last year that he had returned all the documents and that lawyer refusing.  More important, it’s damned likely he still has government documents somewhere else like his NY apartment, in Bedminster, or even Mar a Lago.

But the story also recounted TFG’s desire to used the stolen documents as trade bait.  The key quote:

“Mr. [TFG], still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and Records Administration for its unwillingness to hand over a batch of sensitive documents that he thought proved his claims.

In exchange for those documents, Mr. [TFG] told advisers, he would return to the National Archives the boxes of material he had taken to Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla.”

So there it is.  Not only did TFG recklessly steal top secret and other government documents, he then concocted a plan to use his unlawful possession of stolen documents as a hostage to get evidence to support his contention that the FBI was out to get him.  It’s classic mobster behavior; worse, it’s stupid, careless, and another example of the danger this man poses to not only the country but to himself.

I’ve had several theories about why TFG stole these documents and then toyed with the DOJ for over a year and a half; first, obviously TFG is a dumbass with shit for brains; second, I figured he saw value in them to sell to the highest bidder; third, he loves all the trappings of being president and continued playing Oval Office and pretending he’s still there; lastly I figured he just likes pissing off the “deep state”.  All of these theories are plausible and damned likely; what I hadn’t thought about that he believed he could use the stolen documents to steal more documents.  That act is just a glimpse into how evil TFG truly is.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals just dropped a 29 page ruling on TFG, siding with the DOJ that classified materials are classified, that TFG had provided zero evidence he’d declassified anything when he infested the Oval Office, and that he had no purpose to possess US government documents.  Key quote:

“[Mr. Trump] has not even attempted to show that he has a need to know the information contained in the classified documents.  Nor has he established that the current administration has waived that requirement for these documents. And even if he had, that, in and of itself, would not explain why plaintiff has an individual interest in the classified documents.”

The ruling went further to say that the Special Master, Judge Dearie, had no need to review any classified documents and ordered the removal of those documents from those he was to review.  This ruling cleared the way for the FBI to continue its criminal investigation into TFG’s hoarding of highly sensitive documents and his obstruction to stop the DOJ from recovering them.

Oh, and two of the three judges on the panel were TFG appointees.

Bad day for TFG, good day for democracy. Boom.

Abbott and DeSantis are cynically doing election year stunts to keep their base whipped up to drive them to the polls in November.  Abbott bussing families to DC and New York, and DeSantis flying them to Martha’s Vineyard violate more than a few state and federal laws against human trafficking, crossing state lines with undocumented immigrants, misappropriation of taxpayer funds, and  others.  Clearly, both governor’s believe they are above the law (like TFG) and are thumbing their noses at immigration and law enforcement agencies.

I say, fine.  Don’t go after the governors’ lawbreaking (yet), but cut off access to the services they’re using to illegally dump immigrants around the country.  Let’s use the same tactics that anti-choice politicians use…get some our own pawns to use.  Go after those who are enabling this unprecedented cruelty, the drivers and owners of the buses and the pilots and owners of the aircraft being used.  They KNOW they’re transporting undocumented immigrants (or should know), so federal authorities should go after them and indict them for trafficking.  Pilots convicted of crimes lose their licenses.  Drivers may not lose their license but will certainly lose their jobs.  Both will certainly face jail time.  If we do that, no bus company or air charter company will touch this business.  Problem solved, at least until the governors get prosecuted.

The only way to fight fire is with fire.  The hallmark of TFGist Republicans is cruelty and dickishness.  The only way to stop them is to cut off their resources and make them pay personally.

In October of 2021 top US intelligence officials sent a Top Secret cable to all CIA stations around the world warning that an alarming number of agents (informants) were being killed, captured, or compromised.  This unusual warning was sent after the loss of dozens of agents around the world that sharply increased over the last several years, and correspond to the time TFG infested the Oval Office and since. What we didn’t know then, but do now is that he stole thousands of government documents, including Top Secret, Classified, Secret, and Confidential documents.  Some of these documents were marked “HCS”, meaning Human Intelligence Control System, which identifies that this particular intelligence was gathered from clandestine agents in foreign countries.  Worse, over 40 EMPTY classified intelligence folders were found in Trump’s personal office.

It gives me cold chills to think about where those documents ended up, especially in light of last October’s CIA cable and the thousands of documents that had been completely unsecured for over a year and a half.  It’s very likely these documents ended up in enemy hands; it’s not a long leap to imagine that these documents were then used to find and kill or capture clandestine agents working for the US, and that’s the scary part of this whole sordid chapter.  TFG, through his corruption, malignant narcissism, and his negligent disregard for the rule of law is the greatest threat to the US since the Civil War.