News bits: Channel note; DJT’s new threat to democracy; Regarding the TTKP

Channel note

For the last two days, Disqus comments have been going into spam and not my in-box. There were 99 in there this morning. I will be a bit later than usual in responding. I am not ignoring anyone, but just have a strange problem going on.

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The New Republic and others are reporting that DJT has made a huge threat that if the USSC does not grant him immunity, he will be open to blackmail and extortion. I do not see it that way at all. He would feel justified to take bribes just as he always has felt justified in breaking any law he believed he could get away with breaking. 

TNR writes: Trump Admits He Could Be Very Easily Blackmailed, Actually -- Donald Trump has a new argument for why he deserves presidential immunity—and it’s mind-boggling.  On Monday, the GOP front-runner tried to argue that his preordained innocence is an issue of national security by admitting that he’s actually very susceptible to blackmail. “Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Folks, it cannot get much clearer than this. Not only is he a lying, fornicating traitor, he is a self-serving, corrupt as hell, kleptocratic dictator. 

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After yesterday’s voting results, the NYT editorial board commented about the completeness of the take over of the GOP and its transformation into what I call the TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party): Trump’s Conquest of the Republican Party Matters to Every American -- The party has become a vessel for the fulfillment of Mr. Trump’s ambitions, and he will almost certainly be its standard-bearer for a third time. This is a tragedy for the Republican Party and for the country it purports to serve. .... The Republican Party is forsaking all of those responsibilities and instead has become an organization whose goal is the election of one person at the expense of anything else, including integrity, principle, policy and patriotism. .... when an entire political party, particularly one of the two main parties in a country as powerful as the United States, turns into an instrument of that person and his most dangerous ideas, the damage affects everyone.

Well, it is nice to see a little wokeness going on in the MSM. Good for the editorial board. Just hope it is not too little or too late. Good job editorial board.

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The WaPo reports that Haley will announce she is dropping out of the TTKP race for president.

The Hill reports that Democrats ready to hit panic button in Trump-Biden race. That is nice. The party has gone a bit more woke! Attaboy Dems. 

Salon comments on what is now DJT’s mental deterioration and its irrelevance to his supporters:

Trump is degenerating before our eyes — MAGA voters don't notice or don't care

GOP base is now so consumed by incoherent QAnon babble that Trump’s obvious deterioration doesn’t even register

Lately, watching him speak has the feel of getting cornered by the weird creep at the nursing home.

After a few semi-coherent, if gross, remarks about how he was “honored” by the USSC ruling, Trump launched straight into a stream of paranoid jabber more appropriate for someone having a psychiatric episode on a city bus than for a major presidential candidate.

His appearance got stranger after most networks had muted him. A bit later, he complained that it takes him 10 minutes to wash his hair, which he somehow blamed on Democrats instead of on the full bottle of hairspray he uses on his remaining locks every morning.

Incoherent blithering