just what the fuck does ABC News think they’re doing?

these cowards are paving the way for their own demise

don’t fucking obey in advance. how many times do we have to say it?

this shameful business of ABC News folding like a pack of cards — and agreeing to pay out fifteen mil to settle a lawsuit filed by Donny Convict — is a big, stinky shit sandwich they’re shoving in all of our faces.

Donny is an adjudicated rapist, this I know — because Judge Kaplan told me so.

here are the words of Lewis A. Kaplan, the judge who presided over the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial.

“The finding Ms. Carroll failed to prove she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the N.Y. Penal Law does not mean she failed to prove Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape’. Indeed, as the evidence at trial… makes clear, the jury found Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

when George Stephanopoulos said, during an ABC News broadcast in 2023, that Donny was “liable for rape,” he was well within his First Amendment rights — and he was factually accurate. when Donny got his panties in a twist and filed a defamation suit, the bigwigs at ABC should have just rolled their eyes and mimed jerk-off motions.

because filing frivolous lawsuits is what Donny does. he’s a thin-skinned man-baby who power-loads his diaper and screams off with their heads any time anyone is mean to him.

Donny has been involved in over four thousand lawsuits in his felonious life, and he’s lost 93% of them. he sues people just to be an asshole. he knows most folks don’t have time for the stress and hassle of going to court, nor can they afford to be buried by legal bills. and yet, he still manages to lose the overwhelming majority of his cases.

but ABC News isn’t some hapless carpeting contractor with limited resources — they’re a corporation with deep pockets, and they should have fought this thing to the bitter end. here’s the indispensable Margaret Sullivan to explain why.

ABC News should never have caved. They might well have prevailed if they had hung in there. The legal bar is very high for libeling a public figure, and Trump is the ultimate public figure. Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement.

As one law professor told the Times, what ABC News did was very unusual. News organizations generally don’t settle “because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side.”

so why did ABC News fold? because they’re owned by Disney — and Disney has one rule above all the others:

protect the Mouse.

Disney won’t do anything that would harm their bottom line — and if that means forcing ABC News to abrogate their responsibility to tell the truth, well then, fuck the news.

you’ll be shocked to learn that Disney is already in bed with Donny.

Debra OConnell, the Disney executive who directly oversees ABC News, dined with Mr. Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in Palm Beach last Monday, according to two people briefed on their interaction.

this is such a terrible precedent. we need reliable and abundant news, now more than ever. did you know that the overwhelming majority of people who don’t consume news voted for Donny?

Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts — counties lacking a professional source of local news — it was an avalanche.

Trump won 91% of these counties over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of voting data by Medill Journalism School’s State of Local News project.

‘keep the people ignorant and fighting each other, and they won’t notice the plutocrats picking their pockets’ is right on page one of the oligarch’s playbook.

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here’s a story from about six months ago that should have been a big deal but got memory-holed almost immediately.

last June, a bunch of CEOs held one of their regular ‘business round tables.’

plutocrats love to hold these captains-of-industry circle-jerks where they all sit around and congratulate each other on how super fucking amazing they are.

at this particular round table, the guest of honor was none other than Donny Convict. the CEOs listened to Donny bloviate, and they were shocked to discover that he was an rambling, incoherent dumpster fire.

“Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said one CEO who was in the room, according to a person who heard the executive speaking. The CEO also said Trump did not explain how he planned to accomplish any of his policy proposals, that person said.

here’s how Andrew Ross Sorkin reported it at the time.

I spoke to a number of the CEOs who were at that meeting yesterday, a number of whom frankly had been predisposed to former president Trump, and they walked away from that meeting a bit disheartened, a bit questioning — I don’t want to say his mental fitness, but questioning just how meandering. in some cases, one said to me, he could not keep a thought straight.

so, did these CEOs sound the alarm, and line up behind Kamala Harris, who had the distinct advantages of understanding how economies work — and not being a demented train wreck?

no, of course they didn’t. they pretended the whole thing never happened, and backed Donny all the way — and now they’re being served up a big fucking bowl of careful what you wish for.

CEOs and business execs hoping to dissuade Donald Trump from enacting what they and many economists believe will be ruinous tariffs are finding he won’t budge, and that has them scrambling to find a way to get through to him.

you fucking dolts, what did you think would happen once you helped Donny regain power? that he would somehow magically become presidential, and grow a brain?

how delusional are these billionaire bubble-dwellers? four years ago, Donny didn’t understand how tariffs work. he still didn’t understand them a year ago. nor did he understand them last week. can you see where I’m going with this?

and now the CEOs are freaking out because Donny is going to clownfuck the entire country into a massive recession — and there’s no way anyone can talk him out of it.

As the Journal’s Brian Schwartz wrote, “Trump isn’t budging” before adding, “So far, executives are facing setbacks as they canvass Trump’s aides for advice on how to influence the president-elect’s next steps. Trump is largely acting on his own, leaving his incoming team of advisers with few opportunities to shape his thinking.”

hey, you know what other captains of industry thought they could control an insane dictator?

of course you do.

“Many members of the German elites thought Hitler was going to be the useful idiot who was going to play their games. They thought he could be controlled. And I come back to this metaphor of the horseman riding the horse, except that within three or four months, they discovered that they were the horse and that Hitler was the horseman.”

so how’d that work out for the industrialists who backed the Third Reich?

Some of those conservative allies, like von Schleicher, met their end in the Night of the Long Knives of June 1934. This was a time of realization for the German elite, as Malinowski says: “Now they understood that this monster they had helped create had come to a Frankenstein moment where it could no longer be tamed, and was redirecting its violence against its own creators.”

and now, once again history may very well repeat itself — all because a bunch of arrogant CEO pricks thought they could make a stubborn imbecile dance to their tune.

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okay, I’ve thrown a lot of ugly shit at you today. but listen — do not despair. the sewer clowns are overconfident imbeciles who have bitten off more than they can chew. yes, they’re going to do some damage, but they’re also going to step all over their own dicks and fall on their faces, because that’s what they do.

here’s my favorite bluesky post again:

“Don’t assume maximalist outcomes for the Trump administration. That’s a form of psychological surrender. We should attempt to exploit every stumble, failure, and misstep, and there will be stumbles, failures, and missteps.”

Kelly M. Hayes has it exactly right in her post. it’s self-defeating to just give up and imagine that the worst possible outcome is unavoidable.

that’s how Donny wants you to feel. don’t give him the pleasure.

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here’s your daily reminder that I can be found on Blue Sky at this link.

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this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.