Trump’s habit of stiffing the help may come back to bite him.

The multiplying charges brought against allies of former President Trump and their mounting legal fees are creating consternation in Trump world — while presenting a real risk to the former president.

Trump has burned through millions of dollars in donor money to pay for legal fees as he defends himself against charges in New York City, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.

But the former president, who has built a reputation for stiffing workers, has shown no interest in providing financial aid to former aides charged over their efforts to keep him in power. 

…

As Trump’s aid to allies trickles, some warn failing to take on their legal bills could come back to haunt him if associates seek to cooperate with prosecutors. 

It turns out to be an expensive business, trying to overturn an election. Lots of moving parts, lots of people to pay, lots of indictments to fight.

“Donald’s an idiot,” Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen told CNN. “Let me just be very clear: When it comes to paying money, he is truly an idiot. He has not learned yet that … three people you don’t want to throw under the bus like that: your lawyer, your doctor and your mechanic. Because one way or the other, you’re going to go down the hill, and there’ll be no brakes.”

He mused that Giuliani could present the biggest risk for Trump. Although he’s facing charges in Georgia, he has yet to be indicted in the federal Jan. 6 case, despite being listed as a co-conspirator.

“Allegedly, from Rudy’s own mouth, he claims that he has smoking gun information about Donald,” Cohen said, adding later, “He’s going to need to speak, and he’s going to need to speak before everybody else does.”

Giuliani is facing some of the steepest debts as his cases pile up.

Yeah, whatever, Trump has some golf to play.

No. Get out, Peter. You’re not the boss of women. Get out.

Sigh.

What is that even supposed to mean? Feminism isn’t “inclusive” – it’s not about men, and it disagrees with women who oppose feminism. No substantive political category can be “inclusive” in some over-arching way because it’s for X and against Y, so bang goes your inclusion.

Being “inclusive” in that broad sense just isn’t the goal, and never has been, and can’t be. I doubt that Caro herself is “inclusive” in that broad sense – we can see that she’s not “inclusive” of feminists who don’t subscribe to trans ideology, for a start.

Back atcha. pal.

Yes in some ways patriarchy can be oppressive to men, but that’s not the core of feminism. In some ways racism can be oppressive to white people, but that’s not the core of anti-racism. Feminism is about the way women are belittled, ignored, bullied, assaulted, deprived, sidelined, restricted, excluded, treated as inherently and permanently inferior. That’s why it’s called feminism not peopleism.

Updating to add:

Pink News of course is ecstatic.

Queer community celebrates Emily Bridges’ ‘sensational’ inclusion on influential British Vogue list

By “inclusion” of course they mean “inclusion” in the category “women.”

The “queer community” celebrates, they tell us – I wonder if the gay community does. Do gay men really want to have sex with trans men? Do they want to be bullied and called names and shunned if they decline to have sex with trans men? Is there a limit to their celebration of inclooosion?

Trans cyclist Emily Bridges has been included in a list of influential women by British Vogue magazine.

Which is stupid and insulting, because he’s a man. It also deprives one woman of a place on that list.

Activists and allies celebrated the star’s inclusion in Vogue 25, a list of women who are “defining – and redefining – Britain in 2023,” compiled by the fashion bible.

The star? The fashion bible? Trans ideology really does rot the brain.

Bridges became the centre-point of a toxic national debate in 2022 after she was barred from a major British Cycling championship for being transgender.

Liar. Not for being transgender, for being male. He was barred from a women’s race because he’s a man.

Victoria Smith explains why we have to resist this crap.

At risk of promoting another outburst, I’d suggest that Bridges doesn’t deserve to be on Vogue’s list, either. Much as I’m aware this will lead to charges of being “exclusionary” — indeed, trolling feminists was likely part of the point — I don’t think that we should let these things pass. If it matters that women have power, and that exceptional women are recognised, then it also matters to recognise how and why we need lists like this.

I’ve been thinking “trolling feminists was likely part of the point” myself. First I was thinking “Why do they keep doing this shit???” – “they” being all the news outlets and political groupings and NGOs and so on – and then I was realizing the only possible reason is because they want to piss us off. They want to rub feminists’ noses in the fact that we can’t have feminism any more because men have found the perfect way to sabotage everything we’ve ever done. “Hahaha sucks to be you, doesn’t it, bitches.”

Female power lists — like women-only shortlists, or female-only literary prizes — exist as a response to exclusion. Their original purpose was not to offer a Barbie-pink, No Boys Allowed, pyjama-party version of male power, on the basis that women — being girly and feminine — find the latter boring. When women object to the presence of male people on lists that were created as a corrective to female marginalisation, we are not being spoilt mean girls, whining about the presence of someone who’s a little bit different. We are rejecting the expectation that women rely on the benevolence of male people to have anything of our own. 

And they are telling us over and over and over that we don’t get to reject that expectation. Not any more, bitches.

The inclusion of Bridges on a woman’s power list doesn’t just mean the exclusion of someone who deserves to be there. It changes the nature of what the list means, undermining the very justification for its existence.   

I am not sure Vogue particularly cares about this. I do, though. Ironically, the presence of a male person on a women’s power list — in a world where women still have so little power in relation to men – demonstrates the need for women’s power lists. Just not those in Vogue.

Or a long list of other publications and NGOs and so on.

Colin Montgomerie perpetuates the lie.

There is no “ban on trans athletes.” Some sports have belatedly stopped letting men invade women’s sports.

And what the hell is a “trans cyclist”? Someone who drives a car in cycling races?

I’m so tired of the insults.

Don’t include men who say they are women in lists of women. Stop doing that. Just stop.

Here’s the incorrect aka dishonest Vogue headline:

He wasn’t “banned from competitive cycling,” and he wasn’t banned from women’s cycling “because he’s trans.” He was banned from women’s competitive cycling because he’s not a woman.

Uh, no they can’t.

Ah good, they’re all safe.

Pakistan’s interior ministry says the remaining three people have been rescued from the cable car, meaning the operation has now concluded.

Life is precarious in mountainous regions with weak infrastructure. Homemade cable cars are abundant in north-western Pakistan.

The National (Scotland) publishes a sack of drivel by one Emma Grae about Graham Linehan the Heretic:

After I tweeted in defence of trans women following the jailing of convicted trans rapist Isla Byrson earlier this year, stating that painting all trans women with the same brush as her is equivalent comparing all cisgender women to Myra Hindley, he called me a “vichy feminist” and challenged me to name “a few more Myra Hindleys”.

What the hell is a trans rapist? Bryson is a real rapist. He’s a trans woman but he’s not a trans rapist. And that comparison is ridiculous. All women=half the people on the planet; all trans women=a tiny fraction of people on the planet.

Also it’s tarring with the same brush, not painting. Also it’s Bryson, not Byrson.

Also, it’s Vichy, not vichy. If you don’t know what Vichy was, ffs find out.

Looking back, his challenge is haunting in light of the recent conviction of Britain’s worst modern female serial killer, Lucy Letby – a cisgender woman. It certainly reflects the fact that it is wrong to suggest that trans and gender variant people are any more likely to commit heinous crimes than anyone else.

No it doesn’t. Why? Because it’s just one item. One is not enough to be statistically significant.

Glinner appears to be a man who wants to silence those who disagree with him, whether it’s by questioning their right to make a decision, name-calling, or simply by making his voice heard regardless.

Making his voice heard regardless is not silencing those who disagree with him. This piece is really dumb.

The fact that only 50 people turned up to his eventual gig outside the Scottish Parliament after a second venue cancelled the show once again shows that his views are not in line with the majority of Scottish people’s.

No it doesn’t. Canceling and changing venue is going to cut down on the audience with each tweak.

Although free speech is important, when it involves the targeted harassment of some of society’s most vulnerable people — in the last year alone, hate crimes against trans people doubled in England and Wales — restrictions have to be put in place.

Disputing trans ideology is not targeted harassment, and men who claim to be women are not some of society’s most vulnerable people.

What happened to quality control?

All the other Pythons went to the Imperial.

The sack of Rome – the Black Death – crossing the Atlantic – the Hindenburg – trans people were front and center on all occasions.

And at the same time everyone is pointing and laughing at the eleventy seventh idenniny crisis of Mx Knox.

Oooooooooooh does he? Despite having done so before, and before that, and…? How exciting!

The Star hastily closed comments, but not before one speedy responder had time to say “No one cares.”

This is so pathetically stupid and destructive.

That’s the first tweet of…I don’t know, forty? Fifty? Way too many. The point of it all, of course, is that terfs are evil and it’s all their fault.

Only the third tweet of this enormous thread, and already we see the all too familiar problem: she thinks it’s “trans-hostile” to know that people can’t change sex and that trans ideology obliterates women’s rights. She confuses rejection of trans ideology with hatred of her “niece.”

Many tweets later –

That’s nice, that’s reasonable, that’s level-headed. People who know that boys are not girls are Nazis determined to destroy people.

Yep, she really is saying that we’re working up to genocide.

Trump uses racist tropes in his verbal attacks on prosecutors and similar.

Donald Trump’s aggressive response to his fourth criminal indictment in five months follows a strategy he has long used against legal and political opponents: relentless attacks, often infused with language that is either overtly racist or is coded in ways that appeal to racists.

The early Republican presidential front-runner has used terms such as “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. He has accused Black prosecutors of being “racist.” He has made unsupported claims about their personal lives. And on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump has deployed terms that rhyme with racial slurs as some of his supporters post racist screeds about the same targets.

…

While this is a well-worn strategy for Trump, his latest comments come at a particularly sensitive moment. On a personal level, a bond agreement signed on Monday by Trump’s lawyers and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis imposes restrictions on his communications, including those issued through social media. And more broadly, experts worry Trump’s broadsides will worsen online vitriol and inspire violence.

Of course they will. That’s why he issues them.

Even before Trump was charged in Georgia last week with multiple criminal counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he spent days assailing the prosecutor in the case with unfounded accusations and race-related attacks.

He wrote online that Willis was a “rabid partisan.” He ran an ad that claimed without evidence that she hid a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting — an ad she called “derogatory and false” in an email to staff obtained by The Associated Press. He lobbed accusations that Willis, the first Black woman to hold her role, was “racist” and using the indictment as a “con job.”

After the indictment was filed, Trump sent an email highlighting parts of Willis’ background. Under a heading titled “A family steeped in hate,” Trump’s email notes her father’s identity as a former Black Panther and criminal defense attorney, as well as Willis’ stated pride in her Black heritage and Swahili first name, which means “prosperous.” Willis has been open about her father’s history and her heritage.

Trump calls other people “steeped in hate.” You couldn’t make it up.

Trump’s reaction to the Georgia charges match how he has responded to earlier indictments and investigations.

He has slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is Black, as a “Soros backed animal” even though George Soros, the Hungarian American and Jewish billionaire who conservatives frequently invoke as a boogeyman, doesn’t know and didn’t directly donate to Bragg, according to a Soros spokesman. The former president also claimed Bragg was a “degenerate psychopath” who “hates the USA.”

In a message last September on Truth Social, Trump referred to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is Black, as “Racist A.G. Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James.” The nickname is similar to a term used to insult Black people.

And so on and so on.

But…

But Joanne Harris is herself white middle-class. She’s also female, which I assume “vulnerable” is code for. She’s playing the Karen card, because……………I have no idea why she’s doing that.

Trump was trash-talking about Brian Kemp and Fani Willis just this morning.

Governor Kemp of Georgia is fighting hard against the Impeachment of the crooked, incompetent, & highly partisan D.A. of Fulton County, Fani Willis, who has allowed Murder and other Violent Crime to MASSIVELY ESCALATE. Crime in Atlanta is WORST IN NATION. She should be impeached for many reasons, not just the Witch Hunt (I did nothing wrong!). Willis should focus on out of control Murder, not “I will get TRUMP” over a Perfect Phone Call. Georgia does not deserve this GIANT MURDER WAVE!

He won’t stop just because he’s required to.

The BBC on Trump’s out on bailitude:

A judge in Georgia overseeing former US President Donald Trump’s election interference case has set a bail bond of $200,000 (£157,000).

Mr Trump and his 18 co-defendants have until midday Friday to surrender to a court in Atlanta.

The bail filing says Mr Trump can remain free pending trial so long as he does not attempt to threaten or intimidate witnesses.

But he will. He won’t be able to do otherwise. He doesn’t take orders from anyone.

Mr Trump is also banned from committing any crimes, and can only have contact with the other co-defendants in the case with lawyers present.

He’ll probably do both of those things too.

Out on bail.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s bail was set at $200,000 on Monday in a sprawling racketeering case charging Mr. Trump and 18 associates with election interference in Georgia.

The move came as it became clear that Mr. Trump and the other defendants will be required to pay cash upon being booked in Atlanta, unlike in the three other criminal cases involving the former president.

Under the conditions of his bond agreement, Mr. Trump cannot violate state or federal laws or communicate with any co-defendants in the case except through his lawyers. He was told not to intimidate witnesses or co-defendants, or “otherwise obstruct the administration of justice,” by threatening them or 30 unindicted co-conspirators in the case.

He will threaten them though. We know he will.

He was also directed to “make no direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community” including “posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media,” the bond sheet states.

He will though.

Mr. Trump in the past has made inflammatory and sometimes false personal attacks online against Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, who is leading the case.

…

The costs clearly worry some of the defendants in the Trump case; one of them, Cathy Latham, a former Republican Party official in Georgia who acted as a fake elector for Mr. Trump in 2020, has set up a legal-defense fund, describing herself as “a retired public-school teacher living on a teacher’s pension.” The $3,645 she has initially raised is well short of a $500,000 goal.

Gee, maybe it was a mistake to help Trump try to steal the election.

Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who played a central role in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost in 2020, expressed frustration a few days after her indictment in the case at the looming legal costs. “Why isn’t MAGA, Inc. funding everyone’s defense?” she asked last week on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Because Trump is Trump. Duh.

A person briefed on the matter said that Ms. Ellis had not asked for help from a legal-defense fund formed recently by Mr. Trump’s advisers but that she had sought help earlier and had been denied.

Mr. Trump has used a political action committee that is aligned with him, and that is replete with money he raised in small-dollar donations as he falsely claimed he was fighting widespread fraud after the 2020 election, to pay the legal bills of a number of allies, as well as his own.

But other defendants have been denied help with mounting legal bills long before they were charged. That includes Mr. Giuliani, who was also charged last week and whose lawyer and son have implored Mr. Trump to provide help with his mounting legal costs.

So they’ll all turn on him. Smart guy.

No. Get out.

Ecuadorians voted against drilling for oil in a protected area of the Amazon, an important decision that will require the state oil company to end its operations in a region that’s home to two uncontacted tribes and is a hotspot of biodiversity.

Yasuni National Park is inhabited by the Tagaeri and Taromenani, who live in self-isolation. In 1989, it was designated a world biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also known as UNESCO. Encompassing a surface area of over 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres), it boasts 610 species of birds, 139 species of amphibians, and 121 species of reptiles. At least three species are endemic.

Rock on birds and amphibians and reptiles.

H/t Anna