Gala At Palace Mar-A-Lago Shows Trump’s Big Lie Won’t Die
While Ukraine is in the battle for its survival as an independent, democratic country and thousands are dying from Russian attacks, a group of the most dishonorable people in the nation gathered at the palace of trump in Mar-a-Lago to view the premier of a film that claims to prove the lie that trump was a victim of voter fraud in the 2020 election, a film and a premise that has been roundly rejected by all but the far right and is an insult to the democratic form of government.
I think it’s pretty amazing that I can type with one hand and hold my nose with the other while I prepare to grab a bag when I lose my cookies.
Trump appeared to speak to his many MAGA sycophants before the screening of the fact-challenged movie. Commentator Ron Flipowski summed up the essence of the absurdity with a video he posted on May 5 of mingling, glittering guests inside the great and gaudy Mar-a-Lago ballroom before the movie was shown. The clip ended with an unidentified man facing the camera and chortling a well-known QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”
The gala collection of glitz, glamour and election fraud was part of the premiere of “2000 Mules,” Dinesh D’Souza’s crazy 2020 film claiming to prove voter fraud. Freeloaders in attendance glomed poolside drinks and h’ordeurves and included many of the top threats to our form of government, like a smiling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posing with a smiling Kyle Rittenhouse. Greene is the QAnon-believing, Christian slamming, trump conspiracist and defender of those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She also blames Bill Gates for unleashing monkeypox and she tweeted on Friday “If I were President right now,” she’d “rip the noose off American businesses & reward people who work” and “radically deregulate, incentivize, and build 100% confidence in our country’s businesses — large and small to unleash and rebuild the power of the American economy.”
Rittenhouse of course is the baby-faced white supremacist who shot and killed two Black Lives Matter protesters during demonstrations in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020. Hailed as a hero by trump, tucker carlson and ann coulter, Rittenouse was found not guilty of the killings.
Greene made the rounds, posing for another photo with Chuckie-look alike, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., another flaming supporter of the wacko voter fraud conspiracy who also is being investigated for sex trafficking. She also stood glowingly with Scott Kaspar, a right wing, trumper who ran and lost in the primary for Congress from Illinois.
Rittenhouse had a broad grin as he posed with Lara Logan, a one time star at CBS News before she crossed over to the dark side of vaccine skeptics and election deniers. Logan, the former chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, is a guest on right wing podcasts and speaks at rallies for fringe causes, including lies about deaths from COVID-19 vaccine and conspiracy theories about voter fraud. Logan recently downplayed the seriousness of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol; has repeated pro-Kremlin attacks on the United States, accusing Americans of “arming the Nazis of Ukraine”; said climate change is ‘another load of BS’; and has compared Dr. Anthony S. Fauci to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor. Logan left CBS in 2018 after her contract expired.
And nearby is a smiling Vernon Jones with a smiling disgraced Gen. Michael Flynn.
Jones was a candidate for Congress from Georgia before quitting the race in February. He has perpetrated trump’s fantasy of voter fraud and has been speaker at trump rallies. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined Jones’ background and found he has “a long history of problematic behavior toward women, repeatedly accused of threatening, intimidating and harassing women in his personal and professional lives” over three decades.
After the hoopla, Jones tweeted, “Few Americans greater than General Flynn himself! It’s an honor to have his support and an even greater honor to join him at Mar-a-Lago today for the premiere of #2000Mules.”
As for Flynn, he was briefly trump’s National Security Advisor before he was fired and pleaded guilty in December 2017 to “willfully and knowingly” making false statements to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s investigation into links between trump and Russia. On Nov. 25, 2020, Flynn was pardoned by trump. Flynn is a QAnon conspiracist who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and suggested that trump should suspend the Constitution, silence the press and hold a new election under military authority.
Another circus performer was Andrew H. Giuliani, the son of Rudy Giuliani, the conspiracy supporter and former mayor of New York City who has been sweating a strange brown liquid.The younger is running for governor of New York and tweeted, “2000 Mules is INCREDIBLE and I urge every American that believes in Democracy to go see it so what happened in the 2020 election NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN! Congratulations @DineshDSouza for getting this done!”
Andrew was a “special assistant to the president and associate director of the Office of Public Liaison” during the trump administration at a salary of $95,000 a year. But his real duties were lining up professional athletes to visit the White House and being trump’s golf partner. Giuliani has played golf with Trump since Giuliani was a teenager and traveled with the trump entourage with the sole purpose of playing golf with his leader.
Andrew’s daddy also was there and was photographed with a strange, otherworldly smile next to smiling Bernard B. Kerik, who tweeted, “Joining America’s Mayor, @RudyGiuliani at Mar-a-Lago with @realdonaldtrump to watch Dinesh Desousa’s 2000 Mules! Many in the audience were shocked at the overwhelming evidence of fraud.”
Kerik is a consultant and former Commissioner of the New York Police Department from 2000 to 2001. He was pardoned by Trump in 2020 for his numerous federal convictions for tax fraud, ethics violations, and criminal false statements. While commissioner, Kerik also conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a Battery Park City apartment that had been set aside for first responders at ground zero.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush appointed Kerik as the interior minister of the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority. Kerik withdrew his candidacy, explaining that he had employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny. In 2006, Kerik pleaded guilty in the Bronx Supreme Court to two unrelated misdemeanor ethics violations and was ordered to pay $221,000 in fines. And in 2009, Kerik pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to eight federal felony charges and was sentenced to four years in federal prison before he was granted a full pardon.
D’Souza, a writer and self-professed provocateur, has pleaded guilty in federal court to one felony charge of using a “straw donor” to make the illegal campaign contribution. He was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house near his home in San Diego, five years’ probation, and a $30,000 fine and was pardoned by trump.
Among his books, was his 1995 “The End of Racism,” in which he defended the Southern slave owner, and said that “The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.” In July 2017, D’Souza published “The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left,” which was refuted by historians.
“2000 Mules,” falsely alleges Democrat-aligned individuals were paid to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin during the 2020 presidential election. The film was based on faulty research by a group, “True the Vote.” Trump praised the film as exposing “great election fraud.”
The Associated Press reported the film was based on “faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data.”
The Dispatch, a conservative online magazine, found that “The film’s ballot harvesting theory is full of holes” and mentioned that “D’Souza has a history of promoting false and misleading claims.”
Pass the bag, I am going to be sick.