Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Another right wing manufactured conspiracy theory bites the dust!

Matt Taibbi mocked following MSNBC host's 'public beat-down'



Journalist Matt Taibbi admitted to repeated errors in his reporting – and was left stammering – in a brutal interview segment Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”

Hasan called out Taibbi for multiple falsehoods in Taibbi’s "Twitter Files "claims regarding the 2020 election.

“You talk a lot about the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) in the Twitter Files, which Stanford and the University of Washington founded to monitor attacks on our elections. You say some stuff about them that a lot of your critics say is not true and that affects your credibility. You say the EIP was formed in response to the government dropping its proposal for a disinformation governance board, but that’s not true: It was formed two years earlier. You suggest it was government funded, even though it wasn’t."

“You say they labeled 22 million tweets as misinformation in the runup to the 2020 vote. They didn’t,” Hasan said. “They flagged 3,000 election-misinformation tweets so you were only 21,997,000 off. You also claimed the EIP was partnered with the government cyber-security and infrastructure agency CISA to censor Twitter, but you mix up CISA, a Homeland Security agency, with Center for Internet Security – CIS – a non-profit. In fact, you added an aided an A to CIS in brackets to make that false claim. It’s just error after error.”

Taibbi admitted on air, “That was a mistake. That was an error, but the other ones aren’t.”

But Taibbi would admit on his own Twitter account that three of Hassan’s accusations were correct. (And then Taibbi then launched a tweetstorm of attacks at MSNBC for its coverage of other subjects.)

The devastation did not go unnoticed at The Bulwark. Here’s how Jonathan V. Last reported it.

“Russia-loving, Musk errand boy Matt Taibbi went on Mehdi Hasan’s show this week. No más! Those with a humiliation kink will definitely want to watch the whole thing. Those with weak stomachs should probably pass."

“Normally I’d be against this sort of premeditated public beat-down. But here’s the thing about Taibbi: If anyone deserves it, it’s him. Because this isn’t the low-point of his career. Heck, this isn’t even his most embarrassing moment of the last year"

Last offered this sarcastic assessment of Taibbi:

“Just another brave, anti-woke, tankie truth-teller getting targeted by the dreaded liberal media. Because truly, liberal media bias is the single most important threat facing the world.”

Watch interview segment here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1644061802970468376

[Rick Plant]

Georgia DA expected to 'go big' with Trump indictment



Now that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Donald Trump on 34 felony counts related to hush money payments to an adult film star and Playboy model before the 2016 election, all eyes are focused on Fulton County, Georgia, where the next shoe is poised to drop that could force the former president to make another court appearance.

According to a report from the New York Times, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could be bringing a case against Trump and an assortment of aides and supporters that will be far more complex and far-reaching than the legal proceedings in New York City.

With the Times describing Trump as facing a "blizzard of legal challenges," the Georgia investigation into the former president's attempts to tamper with the 2020 presidential election results could further bog down his efforts to rise above it all and make a third run for the presidency.

The Times reports, "While nothing is certain, there are numerous signs that she may go big, with a more kaleidoscopic indictment charging not only Mr. Trump, but perhaps a dozen or more of his allies," before adding, "Nearly 20 people are already known to have been told that they are targets who could face charges, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and David Shafer, the head of the Georgia Republican Party."

It further notes: "The wide scope of the investigation has been evident for months, and Ms. Willis has said that seeking an indictment under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, statute is an option that she is considering," the Times report added that Willis "may do so after a new grand jury begins its work in the second week of May, though nothing is set in stone. Typically, presenting such cases to a regular grand jury is a short process that takes a day or two."

Regarding using RICO to go after Trump and his associates, Willis previously stated, "RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office or law enforcement to tell the whole story. And so we use it as a tool so that they can have all the information they need to make a wise decision.”

Read More Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/us/trump-georgia-election-fani-willis.html

[Rick Plant]

Fox News settles with Venezuelan businessman in election defamation lawsuit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fox News said on Sunday it has reached a settlement with a Venezuelan businessman Majed Khalil, ending a defamation case in which Khalil said he was falsely accused on air of helping to rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Donald Trump.

Khalil had filed a defamation suit against the news outlet and former host Lou Dobbs, arguing in filings that they had fabricated claims he and other Venezuelans were involved in "orchestrating a non-existent scheme to rig or fix the election" against the former Republican president.

A short letter sent to U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan on SaPersonay said the parties had reached a "confidential agreement to resolve this matter" and expected to file a joint stipulation of dismissal next week.

"This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides. We have no further comment," Fox News said in a statement on Sunday.

Lawyers for Fox News and Dobbs referred Reuters to the statement. Khalil's lawyer did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Trump has continued to repeat debunked claims of widespread voting fraud as reason for his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election even after they have been roundly rejected by courts, state governments and members of his own former administration.

Jury selection is set to begin on Thursday ahead of a separate trial in Dominion Voting Systems Corp's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company Fox Corp over their coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

Bill Barr foresees Trump indictment from feds: 'He had no claim to those documents'



Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that former President Donald Trump would likely be prosecuted after he refused to return classified documents to the federal government.

On Sunday, Barr told ABC News that Trump should be "most concerned about the documents case" despite the former president's recent arrest in New York.

"I'd be most concerned about the document case in Mar-a-Lago because from what I can see, you know, when it first came out, a lot of Republicans manned the ramparts and were dumping all over the FBI and the government," Barr said. "He had no claim to those documents, especially the classified documents. They belonged to the government."

"And so, I think he was jerking the government around, and they subpoenaed it, and they tried to jawbone him into delivery of the documents," he continued. "I think they probably have some very good evidence there."

Barr explained why special counsel Jack Smith was likely to prosecute Trump.

"I don't know him well, but by reputation, he's a very dogged, aggressive prosecutor who will get to the bottom of what happened," he said of Smith. "And this is one of the things that leads me to believe that if there's a case there to be made, it will be brought, because I think the attorney general would have selected another kind of special counsel if he wanted more discretion exercise, like, well, yeah, there's a case, but we don't want to bring that case here because there's a lot of reasons against the public."

Watch the clip from ABC here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1645068527747858432

[Rick Plant]

'Normal people are repulsed by Trump': The Manhattan indictment is chasing away independent voters



Any hopes that the Republican party might have that the indictment of Donald Trump in a Manhattan courtroom last Tuesday will convince outraged independent voters to jump on the Trump train should be put on hold, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

While GOP lawmakers are rallying to the former president's side despite a whopping 34 felony counts related to his alleged payment of hush money to an adult film star and a Playboy model, independent voters and some two-time Trump voters are saying they have had enough and are moving on.

According to the Journal's John McCormick, "While the indictment may embolden Mr. Trump’s core supporters, it is unlikely to help him reach more of the centrist voters he would need to reclaim the White House. A poll released by CNN last week showed 62% of independents approve of the indictment, while Democrats were nearly universal in their approval of it and Republicans largely disapproved of it."

Case in point, Randy Marquardt, the Republican party chairman in Washington County, Wisconsin, said a recent get-together broke up when Trump's name came up as the possible 2024 presidential nominee.

“It got ugly and people eventually went their separate ways to head home,” explained Marquardt. “The other guy argued that Trump came with too much baggage, but there are still quite a few people who are all in with Trump.”

Dallas lawyer David Sherwood, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, has no desire to see the indicted former president on the ballot in 2024, telling the Journal, "The party should avoid Trump and find a younger and fresher candidate,” before adding, “I don’t think Trump can win because he has too much baggage. He has good policies, but an abrasive personality.”

Independent Josh Olson, of Huntersville, N.C., predicted Republicans would have trouble appealing to voters like himself.

“A lot of us normal people are repulsed by Trump already, whether he was indicted or not,” he explained.

Kevin Welch, an independent living in Pottsville, Pa. said he would be willing to consider a Republican who is not the former president even though he voted for him twice before.

“He’s just too caustic,” he remarked. “I liked some of the things he did for this country, but the division that he causes, because of the words he uses, creates a lot of tension.”

Read more here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-some-trump-voters-legal-drama-is-latest-reason-to-move-on-177b67b5?mod=hp_lead_pos1

[Rick Plant]

On Easter Sunday, Criminal Donald was calling for World War III on his failed social media site. Even on the most religious holiday, this lunatic is calling for war & violence. Donnie must be getting scared of his upcoming Fulton County, Georgia and DOJ indictments.     

[Rick Plant]

Fact check: Eric Trump spreads false claims about Alvin Bragg after Donald Trump's arrest
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/04/07/fact-check-eric-trump-spreads-false-claims-alvin-bragg/11608149002/

[Rick Plant]

No, Criminal Donald is not "surging in the polls" as MAGAs falsely try to claim. Donnie's numbers are going further down the toilet.   

A new ABC/Ipsos poll pegs Trump's favorable rating at just 25%.