Monday, March 27, 2023

WSJ Columnist Peggy Noonan Is Off The Mark Asserting Trump Indictment Is "Below Us"

 

                                                                   
                       Trump wields bat on DA Bragg in image from his Truth Social Site

"The weekend has arrived, and Donald Trump, contrary to his predictions, has not been indicted. He has nonetheless used this possibility to make himself the center of attention of both the legal and political worlds, offering a window into his campaign strategy while highlighting the dangers he poses to the stability of the country."  Dan Batz, Washington Post, 'Indictment or no, Trump’s strategy is the same: Attack and threaten', Friday


The potential indictment of Traitor Trump - who has now even shown himself to be a rogue inciter to violence (in his latest rhetoric against Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, )  has caused millions of minds to shatter.  How vile was the rhetoric? The orange fungal scum actually threatened "death and destruction" if indicted by Manhattan DA Bragg and bleated about the prosecutors (with an accompanying image of him holding a baseball bat near DA Bragg's head - like a classic Alabama Klansman about to go on the attack): 

"They are HUMAN SCUM!” 

and  raged in another post actually asking why Bragg “refuses to do the right thing and ‘call it a day?’”

Making one wonder if WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan saw any of this before writing her latest piece of fishwrap: 

The Wrong Indictment Against Trump

 bleating:  

"One of the marks of personal maturity is a sense of proportion. A healthy democracy has a gracious sense of the rightness and wrongness of things, and is alive to symbols and signs. Is this, perhaps, the wrong indictment to bring?


....Charging him in the Stormy Daniels case is below us— not below him, but us. The subject matter is below us. The nature of the charges is below us. The players in the drama aren’t people of import who stand for big things."

In the ideal world, of course, we do always opt for import and "big things" especially in the indictment and prosecution of a former president. We also opt for "proportion" and exhibiting a "rightness and wrongness of things" in pursuing a case. However, not all things are equal or proportionate in the case of a slimeball and cockroach like Donald Trump. Who already nearly took this country down in an insurrection and is likely to take the Reep nomination with or without an indictment - putting our nation once more in peril.  

What? Does Peggy expect us all to turn a deaf ear and blind eye to Trump's incitements to violence? As WaPo columnist Dan Batz noted (see top quote), in the past such Trump rhetoric wasn't taken seriously enough, often dismissed as the usual Trump bluster. But after the cockroach's lies about the 2020 election and the storming of the U.S. Capitol - as well as undermining voting in this country - that is no longer possible. Only a low IQ moron, MAGA zombie or inbred cretin would claim the recent remarks are "histrionic" or "just a joke".  Also, what's clear, as Batz noted, is that the orange swine's primary modus operandi will be "attack, attack, attack."  The media - unlike in 2016  must be smart enough not to give him free air time.  In particular, it needs to warn, like Batz the "dangers he poses to the stability of the country."

As I've written in previous posts, if my Revolutionary War ancestors were still around they'd have hung him already for treason.  But that isn't going to happen and it is equally likely that in the end - despite all the media hype, hoopla and hysterics, no one - neither in Manhattan, Georgia, or with the DOJ (Special Counsel) will bring an indictment that sticks, meaning Trump ends up in prison for 5 years or more. Which would be the optimal outcome short of him croaking from a stroke, brain aneurysm or heart attack.  Also not likely given the roach - despite being overweight and gorging on high calorie, processed crap - seems to thrive on it and go on. Just like the roach he is.

To be sure, psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee already warned that indicting Trump for a lesser crime could fuel his manic MAGA mutts into a frenzy to at least propel his renomination as Reepo standard bearer for 2024. And of that I have little doubt- and neither did Bill Maher Friday night on Real Time -,saying it would provide "jet fuel" for his candidacy.  Maybe.  But it's no reason to totally ignore an indictment if he indeed broke the law.  Bottom line: a venomous, vicious swine like Trump needs to be taken down by someone, somewhere.  And if this is the only indictment that does it, so be it. (See link to Karl Rove's WSJ column below.)

This leads to Noonan's claims that we need "big charges" - and the ones at issue: Trump paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, are "below us".  No they are not below us, if indeed they entail misdirection of campaign funds in violation of campaign finance laws.

 We  now know campaign finance laws were broken, based on the thousands of records obtained from Michael Cohen's residence in the April 9, 2018 warrant search conducted by the FBI, e.g.  hard copy financial, legal documents, seized electronic devices, audio recordings made by Cohen, emails,  text messages sent over encrypted applications, records retrieved from the corporation referenced in the charging documents as "Corporation One" and records from the media company also therein referenced.  

And as Cohen told the House Committee in February, 2019, , he didn't expect to just have his word taken at face value, but wanted members to examine the documents he brought - including a signed check for $35,000 with Trump's signature. This was to pay Cohen back for using his own $130,000 from a home equity line of credit. 

Last but not least, there is the documented testimony of witnesses involved in the transactions for illegal payoffs, like Trump accountant Allen Weisselberg,  e.g.
Image result for alan weiselberg

Clearly then, there is a case to indict Trump for breaking the law, like his consigliere Cohen did.  As Lanny Davis put it way back in August, 2019:

"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?" 

Can Noonan be ok with this? Probably not but that's not an excuse to not go after the rat given also the dispositive evidence against him. What's that? As Lanny Davis explained to a puzzled CBS Early Morning cast (Aug. 22, 2018) Trump's lawyers themselves delivered recorded statements (in depositions) saying that Trump had paid Cohen to pay off Daniels.  Hence, those recorded statements qualified as dispositive evidence. And, if needed to indict, they need to be reported to the grand jury.  

Look, I am not a fan of nailing the Turd on a lesser "paper" crime but if that's what it takes to sully his brand for independent and other voters in 2024 I am all for it.  This is a point already made by Karl Rove in a recent WSJ column.

Trump’s Indictment Won’t Win Him Votes

The recent threatening letter sent to DA Bragg "I am going to kill you" and Trump's clear role in provoking it needs to be taken seriously.  This cockroach cannot be permitted to sully the highest office again! Indict the slime if even on a lesser charge if that's what it takes to derail his sorry ass. 

Too many, like Peggy Noonan and former Trump AG Bill Barr (warning in a recent WSJ op-ed about the "left" overstepping), forget that former VP Dem candidate John Edwards (in the 2004 campaign) was similarly charged with the crime of using campaign funds to conceal an affair. It literally blew up his political career.  A disreputable maggot like Donald Trump deserves no less.  

And as NY Times columnist Charles Blow put it in a recent column: 

"Indictment and prosecution of Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump himself is."  

Bingo!


See Also:

by Alex Henderson | March 28, 2023 - 6:44am | permalink

— from Alternet

On Friday, March 24, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office received a threatening letter containing what the New York Times described as a "suspicious white powder." The letter followed a Truth Social post in which former President Donald Trump threatened "potential death and destruction" if he faces any type of criminal prosecution from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Jr. in connection with alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

If Trump faces some type of indictment, however, it won't necessarily come from Bragg's office. The former president and 2024 presidential hopeful is also being investigated at the federal level by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith and at the state level by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis.

And:

Skewering The Moral Mush Of Sasha Mudd: "Trump Is A Human With Dignity"

And:

by Maya Boddie | March 27, 2023 - 6:24am | permalink

And:

by Amanda Marcotte | March 24, 2023 - 7:31am | permalink

— from Salon

While the world waits with bated breath for a Donald Trump indictment, reporters on the Mar-a-Lago palace intrigue beat say that no one claims more anticipation than Trump himself.

And:

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