The defendant's fake rat's nest blows in the wind
Getty Image
Jan 27, 2024
Okay, we know there are far more substantive things going on. But we join the multitudes celebrating Schadenfreude Friday, when the lying, raping, bullying "love child of a Hapsburg inbred and a necrotic squash" got "beaten like a drum" by an 80-year-old woman who steadfastly insisted the rule of law applies even to clowns in orange makeup who claim it doesn't. Hence, the sidewalk troll outside Trump Hotel: "Ha ha ha ha ha. Keep talking loser," with smiley face. No wonder God made Trump smell.
Thus did a New York jury of nine ordinary Americans - seven men, two women - spend less than three hours Friday deciding the Bad Orange Guy (BOG) must pay advice columnist E. Jean Carroll a whopping $83.3 million, almost ten times what Carroll's legal team had sought, for defaming her as a "whack job" and "fraud" after Carroll successfully charged that Trump raped her in 1996. The award breaks down to $7.3 million in emotional damages, $11 million in reputational damages and $65 million in punitive damages; it comes after a May trial in which Trump was found liable for both sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll, and ordered to pay her an additional $10 million. All that, of course, is without the 91 criminal charges he faces over hush money payments, stealing classified information and election subversion; multiple civil suits over his grifty business practices; and looming legal battles to (duh) keep him from office for inciting insurrection. The fuhrer was prescient: So much winning!
Such was the trial's mob-boss tenor that jurors had been stealthily delivered each day to a garage beneath the courthouse; after the verdict, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan reportedly advised them to "never disclose" they'd served on the jury. As usual, though, experts said Trump had only shot himself in the foot with sloppy theatrics - loudmouth objections to testimony, abruptly storming out of court, otherwise "playing for that 13th juror, the people at home, the politics" - that merely "annoyed" the jury. Said one lawyer, "At some point, you have to be contrite, you have to accept responsibility." Umm. Not. "Absolutely ridiculous!" the perp rage-tweeted on "this whole Biden-directed witch hunt," though Biden was neither among the jurors nor in any way involved. "They have taken away all First Amendment rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" Facts owe, retorted George Conway: "America is about the rule of law...You have no right to maliciously defame anyone, let alone a woman you raped. In America, we call this justice."
Trump's slapdash attorney Alina Habba also furiously raved. Acyn: "Habba not happy." She insisted defending "President" Trump was "the proudest (sic) thing I could ever do," decried a "violation of our justice system," claimed the trial is about Trump "leading in the polls" though Carroll sued him in 2019 when he was in office. "I haven't spoken before because I respect my ethics (sic)," she babbled, trashing the judge, the witnesses, having "sat on" (sic) trial after trial for months," the state: "Now you see what you get in New York." On CNN, Jake Tapper cut her off air with, "You're getting an idea (why) Trump's attorney is perceived as effective as she is - which is not particularly effective." Other unmoored MAGA-ites fumed. MTG: "So unbelievably outrageous!" Matt Gaetz: "A fantastical, false allegation." Trump doc Ronny Jackson, fresh from handing out White House drugs "like Skittles": "First they come for Trump, then they come for ALL OF US! (if we had $83 million). VOTE FOR TRUMP LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!"
In more lucid parts of America, it was gleefully noted, "Schadenfreude was in ample supply." The victory of a tenacious survivor of sexual assault who persevered through a torrent of abuse and "kicked a bully in the balls" prompted praise, pride, admiration and some serious mean-girl trolling of "the orange skidmark." As in: "At this rate, Melania is going to have to marry E. Jean Carroll to get any of Donald's money," "Trump's gonna need to sell more hats," and many edicts that "Trump Is A Loser." Most vitally, said Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, it was "a good day for our system of justice." A veteran trial lawyer who's "been in a lot of courtrooms in my time," Kaplan said she'd "never seen a party be so openly contemptuous of the authority of the court (and) and the legitimacy of our justice system as Donald Trump." This trial, she said, was both vindication and repudiation: "It showed the rule of law applies to everyone. Even if you don't think the rule of law applies to you, it applies to you. And it applied today to Donald Trump."
It also confirmed to the virtuoso folks atHistory Falls Apart- "Dumb films by bored historians" - that BOG is such an irredeemable loser, "In the beginning, Trump already smelled." Along with inspired snark on Peter Doocy getting owned more than Alsace-Lorraine, Steve Bannon freaking when he only gets one shirt in prison, and Rudy Giuliani's historic stalemate at Four Seasons Landscaping, they crafted a dazzling new "So God Made Trump" to honor a gentleman slumlord bewildered by water who became "the most powerful racist six-year-old in the solar system." To wit: "God said I need someone to get up before dawn call Fox and Friends hypnotize Brian Kilmeade beg for money bang a porn star get someone killed pay off a porn star and (wait until noon to stumble into work wearing a Big Mac like an alien face-sucker, so God gave us Trump...A philanderer who can turn shit to gold and gold to shit (who) talks like a 3rd grader cheats like a fornicator and dresses like a head waiter who wears golf cleats to church (and) steals government staples." And the mane: "Firehosed forward, transected like a lattice crust of the world's rankest pork pie, but the bald patch, in the center of the garden, you shall not touch, for it is holy to the lord." So yeah: Keep talking loser.
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Abby Zimet
Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: azimet18@gmail.com
Okay, we know there are far more substantive things going on. But we join the multitudes celebrating Schadenfreude Friday, when the lying, raping, bullying "love child of a Hapsburg inbred and a necrotic squash" got "beaten like a drum" by an 80-year-old woman who steadfastly insisted the rule of law applies even to clowns in orange makeup who claim it doesn't. Hence, the sidewalk troll outside Trump Hotel: "Ha ha ha ha ha. Keep talking loser," with smiley face. No wonder God made Trump smell.
Thus did a New York jury of nine ordinary Americans - seven men, two women - spend less than three hours Friday deciding the Bad Orange Guy (BOG) must pay advice columnist E. Jean Carroll a whopping $83.3 million, almost ten times what Carroll's legal team had sought, for defaming her as a "whack job" and "fraud" after Carroll successfully charged that Trump raped her in 1996. The award breaks down to $7.3 million in emotional damages, $11 million in reputational damages and $65 million in punitive damages; it comes after a May trial in which Trump was found liable for both sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll, and ordered to pay her an additional $10 million. All that, of course, is without the 91 criminal charges he faces over hush money payments, stealing classified information and election subversion; multiple civil suits over his grifty business practices; and looming legal battles to (duh) keep him from office for inciting insurrection. The fuhrer was prescient: So much winning!
Such was the trial's mob-boss tenor that jurors had been stealthily delivered each day to a garage beneath the courthouse; after the verdict, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan reportedly advised them to "never disclose" they'd served on the jury. As usual, though, experts said Trump had only shot himself in the foot with sloppy theatrics - loudmouth objections to testimony, abruptly storming out of court, otherwise "playing for that 13th juror, the people at home, the politics" - that merely "annoyed" the jury. Said one lawyer, "At some point, you have to be contrite, you have to accept responsibility." Umm. Not. "Absolutely ridiculous!" the perp rage-tweeted on "this whole Biden-directed witch hunt," though Biden was neither among the jurors nor in any way involved. "They have taken away all First Amendment rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" Facts owe, retorted George Conway: "America is about the rule of law...You have no right to maliciously defame anyone, let alone a woman you raped. In America, we call this justice."
Trump's slapdash attorney Alina Habba also furiously raved. Acyn: "Habba not happy." She insisted defending "President" Trump was "the proudest (sic) thing I could ever do," decried a "violation of our justice system," claimed the trial is about Trump "leading in the polls" though Carroll sued him in 2019 when he was in office. "I haven't spoken before because I respect my ethics (sic)," she babbled, trashing the judge, the witnesses, having "sat on" (sic) trial after trial for months," the state: "Now you see what you get in New York." On CNN, Jake Tapper cut her off air with, "You're getting an idea (why) Trump's attorney is perceived as effective as she is - which is not particularly effective." Other unmoored MAGA-ites fumed. MTG: "So unbelievably outrageous!" Matt Gaetz: "A fantastical, false allegation." Trump doc Ronny Jackson, fresh from handing out White House drugs "like Skittles": "First they come for Trump, then they come for ALL OF US! (if we had $83 million). VOTE FOR TRUMP LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!"
In more lucid parts of America, it was gleefully noted, "Schadenfreude was in ample supply." The victory of a tenacious survivor of sexual assault who persevered through a torrent of abuse and "kicked a bully in the balls" prompted praise, pride, admiration and some serious mean-girl trolling of "the orange skidmark." As in: "At this rate, Melania is going to have to marry E. Jean Carroll to get any of Donald's money," "Trump's gonna need to sell more hats," and many edicts that "Trump Is A Loser." Most vitally, said Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, it was "a good day for our system of justice." A veteran trial lawyer who's "been in a lot of courtrooms in my time," Kaplan said she'd "never seen a party be so openly contemptuous of the authority of the court (and) and the legitimacy of our justice system as Donald Trump." This trial, she said, was both vindication and repudiation: "It showed the rule of law applies to everyone. Even if you don't think the rule of law applies to you, it applies to you. And it applied today to Donald Trump."
It also confirmed to the virtuoso folks atHistory Falls Apart- "Dumb films by bored historians" - that BOG is such an irredeemable loser, "In the beginning, Trump already smelled." Along with inspired snark on Peter Doocy getting owned more than Alsace-Lorraine, Steve Bannon freaking when he only gets one shirt in prison, and Rudy Giuliani's historic stalemate at Four Seasons Landscaping, they crafted a dazzling new "So God Made Trump" to honor a gentleman slumlord bewildered by water who became "the most powerful racist six-year-old in the solar system." To wit: "God said I need someone to get up before dawn call Fox and Friends hypnotize Brian Kilmeade beg for money bang a porn star get someone killed pay off a porn star and (wait until noon to stumble into work wearing a Big Mac like an alien face-sucker, so God gave us Trump...A philanderer who can turn shit to gold and gold to shit (who) talks like a 3rd grader cheats like a fornicator and dresses like a head waiter who wears golf cleats to church (and) steals government staples." And the mane: "Firehosed forward, transected like a lattice crust of the world's rankest pork pie, but the bald patch, in the center of the garden, you shall not touch, for it is holy to the lord." So yeah: Keep talking loser.
Abby Zimet
Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: azimet18@gmail.com
Okay, we know there are far more substantive things going on. But we join the multitudes celebrating Schadenfreude Friday, when the lying, raping, bullying "love child of a Hapsburg inbred and a necrotic squash" got "beaten like a drum" by an 80-year-old woman who steadfastly insisted the rule of law applies even to clowns in orange makeup who claim it doesn't. Hence, the sidewalk troll outside Trump Hotel: "Ha ha ha ha ha. Keep talking loser," with smiley face. No wonder God made Trump smell.
Thus did a New York jury of nine ordinary Americans - seven men, two women - spend less than three hours Friday deciding the Bad Orange Guy (BOG) must pay advice columnist E. Jean Carroll a whopping $83.3 million, almost ten times what Carroll's legal team had sought, for defaming her as a "whack job" and "fraud" after Carroll successfully charged that Trump raped her in 1996. The award breaks down to $7.3 million in emotional damages, $11 million in reputational damages and $65 million in punitive damages; it comes after a May trial in which Trump was found liable for both sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll, and ordered to pay her an additional $10 million. All that, of course, is without the 91 criminal charges he faces over hush money payments, stealing classified information and election subversion; multiple civil suits over his grifty business practices; and looming legal battles to (duh) keep him from office for inciting insurrection. The fuhrer was prescient: So much winning!
Such was the trial's mob-boss tenor that jurors had been stealthily delivered each day to a garage beneath the courthouse; after the verdict, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan reportedly advised them to "never disclose" they'd served on the jury. As usual, though, experts said Trump had only shot himself in the foot with sloppy theatrics - loudmouth objections to testimony, abruptly storming out of court, otherwise "playing for that 13th juror, the people at home, the politics" - that merely "annoyed" the jury. Said one lawyer, "At some point, you have to be contrite, you have to accept responsibility." Umm. Not. "Absolutely ridiculous!" the perp rage-tweeted on "this whole Biden-directed witch hunt," though Biden was neither among the jurors nor in any way involved. "They have taken away all First Amendment rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" Facts owe, retorted George Conway: "America is about the rule of law...You have no right to maliciously defame anyone, let alone a woman you raped. In America, we call this justice."
Trump's slapdash attorney Alina Habba also furiously raved. Acyn: "Habba not happy." She insisted defending "President" Trump was "the proudest (sic) thing I could ever do," decried a "violation of our justice system," claimed the trial is about Trump "leading in the polls" though Carroll sued him in 2019 when he was in office. "I haven't spoken before because I respect my ethics (sic)," she babbled, trashing the judge, the witnesses, having "sat on" (sic) trial after trial for months," the state: "Now you see what you get in New York." On CNN, Jake Tapper cut her off air with, "You're getting an idea (why) Trump's attorney is perceived as effective as she is - which is not particularly effective." Other unmoored MAGA-ites fumed. MTG: "So unbelievably outrageous!" Matt Gaetz: "A fantastical, false allegation." Trump doc Ronny Jackson, fresh from handing out White House drugs "like Skittles": "First they come for Trump, then they come for ALL OF US! (if we had $83 million). VOTE FOR TRUMP LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!"
In more lucid parts of America, it was gleefully noted, "Schadenfreude was in ample supply." The victory of a tenacious survivor of sexual assault who persevered through a torrent of abuse and "kicked a bully in the balls" prompted praise, pride, admiration and some serious mean-girl trolling of "the orange skidmark." As in: "At this rate, Melania is going to have to marry E. Jean Carroll to get any of Donald's money," "Trump's gonna need to sell more hats," and many edicts that "Trump Is A Loser." Most vitally, said Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, it was "a good day for our system of justice." A veteran trial lawyer who's "been in a lot of courtrooms in my time," Kaplan said she'd "never seen a party be so openly contemptuous of the authority of the court (and) and the legitimacy of our justice system as Donald Trump." This trial, she said, was both vindication and repudiation: "It showed the rule of law applies to everyone. Even if you don't think the rule of law applies to you, it applies to you. And it applied today to Donald Trump."
It also confirmed to the virtuoso folks atHistory Falls Apart- "Dumb films by bored historians" - that BOG is such an irredeemable loser, "In the beginning, Trump already smelled." Along with inspired snark on Peter Doocy getting owned more than Alsace-Lorraine, Steve Bannon freaking when he only gets one shirt in prison, and Rudy Giuliani's historic stalemate at Four Seasons Landscaping, they crafted a dazzling new "So God Made Trump" to honor a gentleman slumlord bewildered by water who became "the most powerful racist six-year-old in the solar system." To wit: "God said I need someone to get up before dawn call Fox and Friends hypnotize Brian Kilmeade beg for money bang a porn star get someone killed pay off a porn star and (wait until noon to stumble into work wearing a Big Mac like an alien face-sucker, so God gave us Trump...A philanderer who can turn shit to gold and gold to shit (who) talks like a 3rd grader cheats like a fornicator and dresses like a head waiter who wears golf cleats to church (and) steals government staples." And the mane: "Firehosed forward, transected like a lattice crust of the world's rankest pork pie, but the bald patch, in the center of the garden, you shall not touch, for it is holy to the lord." So yeah: Keep talking loser.
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