Definitions of hustler. a shrewd or unscrupulous person who knows how to circumvent difficulties. synonyms: operator, wheeler dealer. Con man, a practitioner of confidence tricks.
TRUMP GETS MOST OF THE DELAYS HE NEEDS TO AVOID ACCOUNTABILITY
Donald Trump has not yet been held accountable for criminal acts that have been indicted by 3 different charging entities in 4 different venues adding up to 88 criminal charges:
1) Jack Smith and the DOJ’s coup plot case against Trump as sole defendant before Judge Tanya Chutkan.
2) Fani Willis’ Fulton County, Georgia, RICO case for the extensive coup plot to stay in power after losing the presidential election in which Trump is part of a large group of co-defendants who have been indicted (some have already pleaded guilty).
3) Jack Smith and DOJ documents case in Florida before Judge Aileen Cannon in which Trump failed to return large numbers of top secret documents and tried to obstruct justice by hiding and lying about the documents still in his possession.
4) The States’ Attorney of New York, Alvin Bragg’s case involving Stormy Daniels in which Trump tried to hide information from the public about an affair so that he could get elected in 2016. He had to appeal enough to evangelicals who were GOP voters to get into power. He succeeded. He got elected.
There used to be 91 counts. Now there are 88 counts because the Fulton County judge reduced the RICO indictment brought by Fani Willis by 6 counts. 3 of those relate to Trump. 3 relate to other co-defendants.
THERE COULD STILL BE ONE CRIMINAL TRIAL BEFORE THE ELECTION
For awhile it looked like Trump would get a trial in Washington, DC before the election. Judge Chutkan is eager to get the show on the road in that case and so is Jack Smith, but here the Supreme Court helped Trump to delay that case by deciding to hear oral argument on the bogus issue of presidential immunity. By doing that they may have given Trump the immunity he wanted practically speaking by pushing the trial date back so close to the election it might not be possible to get that case tried to completion before the 2024 election. If Trump is able to get himself re-elected, that case will disappear. Trump will appoint an Attorney General who will make it go away.
In Georgia, the cumbersome RICO case indicted by Fani Willis got off track when one of Trump’s co-defendants uncovered some dirt on Willis that created delay in that case. She has had to fight allegations that an amorous relationship she had with another attorney should be grounds to remove her from the case. The judge ruled that she could stay on as lead counsel in that case if her paramour was removed. So he resigned. But all that took time. Delay delay delay. That’s the name of the game for Trump, who is trying to hustle Americans into voting for him while he games the system to pretend there is nothing to see here. This case will probably not be going to trial before the election.
When it comes to Judge Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge on the documents case, she has engaged in some judicial hustling of her own that most news news outlets are not even catching. Cannon has been noticeably helping Trump by delaying the case in various ways. Some of her decisions have been taken up on appeal to the 11th Circuit where that conservative panel of judges gave her not one but two tongue lashings for rulings that were inappropriate or out of bounds. She doesn’t want that to happen again. So in the most recent requests being made by Trump’s attorneys, Judge Cannon made her ruling “without prejudice”. That allows her to revisit her decision because it is not final. That also means her determination is not open to review by the 11th Circuit court of appeals. In other words, she cannot get slapped down again for her decision by the reviewing court. If she were to be slapped down once again by the Eleventh Circuit, Jack Smith’s team would probably be in a good position to ask that this case be re-assigned to a different judge. Cannon has learned how to manipulate the system enough to continue to help Trump with his delay delay delay strategy. I see no chance that this case gets tried before the election.
The one case that will be tried to completion before the election is the New York election interference case indicted by NY States Attorney, Alvin Bragg. That’s the one involving Stormy Daniels. It is an easily understood case with clear, provable facts that the American people will understand. Trump cheated on his pregnant wife, Melania, with a porn star and, when he ran for president, he tried to hide that dirty truth from the public so that he could get elected in 2016. Without the support of evangelical voters in 2016 Trump’s chance to become president was next to nothing. He engaged in a con and a cover up. But what else is new.
TRUMP HUSTLES BIBLES, GOLD GYM SHOES, PERFUME, AND “TRUTH SOCIAL”
Trump is a hustler and con man by nature. Some people forgive that because they think they want what he will give them if he regains power: namely, a dictatorship that will usher in a glorious era of Christian Nationalism where uppity women and people of color know their place again. They believe his claim that he is being unfairly persecuted instead of seeing that he broke the law in countless ways and got away with it for years. They think that he is a brilliant businessman instead of a failed businessman/ con artist. They think that he is a Christlike figure standing up for his supporters instead of a hustler who is conning his supporters out of millions of dollars. Why more Americans are not aware of the truth by now and turned off by Trump is remarkable and says a lot about the power of denialism and the power of social media in alliance with right wing forces that dominate OANN, Newsmax and Fox.
Trump is also hustling when it comes to the sale of his so-called “Truth” Social platform supposedly increasing his wealth by 3 or 4 billion dollars.
The recent sale of Truth Social generated roughly $3 million over the first 9 months of 2023, government filings show. Meanwhile, the company reported $49 million in net losses over that period.
Experts who spoke to ABC News said the stock boom stands divorced from the financial condition of the company, instead reflecting a buying spree among Trump supporters as well as opportunistic traders capitalizing on the momentum. (ABC NEWS)
In other words, even the sale of his social media company is a sham. The money Trump has “amassed” on paper from this sale is built on a false foundation. The stock is being jacked up by Trump cult followers and speculators the way Game Stop stock was. Trump cannot even access any of these paper gains for 6 months based on the ruling in his civil fraud case. On paper Trump looks like he got a lot richer. We will see about that.
Even so, how can anyone believe that Trump is a multimillionaire, as he claims he is, when he has to hustle gold spray painted gym shoes and sell $60.00 bibles to Americans to make enough money to pay a bunch of lawyers who are trying to keep him out of jail for breaking so many laws?
Oh wait. Maybe some Americans are getting the picture. There’s been a backlash to the most recent con by Trump: Holy Bibles sold by the most unholy guy out there.
Responses to Trump’s social media announcement called the endorsement “sacrilege,” “heresy” and “borderline offensive” and cite lessons directly from the Bible that suggest taking advantage of people’s faith for money should be condemned.
“It is a bankrupt Christianity that sees a demagogue co-opting our faith and even our holy scriptures for the sake of his own pursuit of power and praise him for it rather than insist that we refuse to allow our sacred faith and scriptures to become a mouthpiece for an empire,” said Rev. Benjamin Cremer on X.
Jason Cornwall, a pastor from South Carolina, said on X that Trump’s Bible endorsement was a violation of one of the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Testament that forbids taking God’s name in vain.
However, the criticism doesn’t end with whether or not Trump’s endorsement is un-Christian or not. In fact, it’s just the beginning.
Historian and author Jemar Tisby says the whole project echoes the values of Christian nationalism — the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation and the government should work to sanction Christianity on a national scale. The tenets of Christian nationalism are historically tied to prejudice, nativism and white supremacy. (CNN)
The only way Trump can avoid criminal prosecution and a likely prison sentence is by becoming president, which will give him the power to do away with these criminal cases by appointing loyalists who will do his bidding. Even the state cases will never be tried if Trump regains the presidency. Why? Because he will never leave the presidency. He will claim, and be supported in his claim, that presidents cannot be tried while in office. He will do what other dictators and autocrats do- manufacture or create an emergency that he will say calls for him to stay in office as president and then he will call out the military to put down protests using the Insurrection Act. Trump is nothing if not transparent. He is the American version of Hitler- a seeming jokester or harmless hustler, but, in truth, he will be a real dictator on day one.
Believe him.