83 Comments

My favorite nickname for 45*, which evidently is trending on X, is "Don Poorleone". <Really> wish I could claim credit for it, but just as happy to pass it along to boost its circulation.

Expand full comment
author

ah just take credit!

Expand full comment

Adam I needed this today. I needed to read what you wrote. Thank you.

I will admit I day dream about a bus going out if control and running him over like road kill.

But I'll take this lifeline for today 😆

Expand full comment

Well when you put it <that> way!

Expand full comment

🤣🤣

Expand full comment

Yea, Don Poorleaone just made a killing on the opening of Truth Social!!! OMG, who would buy that? I'm really curious but anyway enough people did so the price surged after it's initial offering. I'm sorry, never count that sleazy, slimy, creepy, narcissist out. We do so at our own peril.

Expand full comment

One more thing…. How does this guy get away with sooooo much even in our courts?!!! Frightening!!

Expand full comment
author

its crazy

Expand full comment

Adam whyy does he get away with so much ? What is it??

He is arrogant

Ugly AF

Orange

And he STINKS like ass

Where have we landed???

Expand full comment

The fellow is adamant that his will and his ego not only are free from the burdens of reality, but also change reality by the power of his Will. Thanks, Leni, for the movie Triumph of Will.

Expand full comment

I think the testimony of Stormy and Karen are going to make Trump look like a total sleaze bag. Enough to turn off many women who are on the fence. Significant because the Republicans are in trouble with women voters already. The vote of women will decide this election.

Who cares about the typos. The message came across just fine.

Expand full comment

If the Stormy and Karen storyline had come out in 2016, we wouldn’t even be talking about this jerk right now. It was total election interference!

Expand full comment

I agree David!Maybe we wouldn’t have had him in the White House!

Expand full comment
Mar 25Liked by Adam Kinzinger

The reduction of the bond amount by the court is ominous. It’s my opinion they have already determined that a reduction in the judgement is warranted. But, they will uphold it. How much of a reduction? I dunno. But that $174 million figure didn’t come out of thin air.

Expand full comment

Two things.... 1. CNN reported this morning that the 30 companies that refused to underwrite his 454 million bond had told him that the most amount they would underwrite is 100 million. It'll be interesting to see if any of them pony up for 175 million. 2. The disgorgement of 454 million was determined not by the judge, but by acknowledged financial experts using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles who testified at the trial. Their analysis compared the benefits the Trump Organization realized based on their inflated property values to what those benefits would have been had the Trump Organization provided accurate evaluations based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The difference between the two results is considered to be profits and gains which were fraudlently obtained. The 454 million figure is the amount that the financial experts arrived at. The Court is requiring the Trump Organization to forfeit that amount in a disgorgement paid to the State of New York. It would seem to me that the Appeals Court would have to bring in a different set of financial experts to do the same analysis using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and arrive at different results in order to justify a reduced disgorgement.

Expand full comment

Exactly right. Judge Engeron's 92 page ruling is a good read. And a good lesson on how not to run a business. Trump and his sons spent more time on figuring out how to break the laws instead of following them. If they ran a normal, legit business (not commit repeated fraud) Trump could have been a real billionaire. He's just wired to be a crook. And a stupid one!

Here's a link to the ruling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/f203be39-020c-4f82-a423-96aa20c08e3a.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_3

Expand full comment

"And a stupid one." You hit the nail on the head with that.

Expand full comment

Thanks for posting this link so others who might be interested can read it. I read it entirely the day after the judges ruling but didn't take the time to post a link to it.

Expand full comment

Interesting.

Expand full comment

From what I understand of similar cases, lowering the amount is not unusual.

Expand full comment

Both tfg and his woeful lien holders know that 30% today often beats 0% forever. Deadbeat Don knows how to play the margins.

Expand full comment

The guy who constantly sues everyone he can for defamation insists on using "free speech" to defend himself.

Expand full comment
author

crazy right

Expand full comment

And defame anyone and everyone who is trying to uphold justice.

Expand full comment

I guess getting away with the hypocrisy is the point. It’s a deliberate display of power.

Expand full comment

Although I think Trump is bad for this country, I am glad the appeals court lowered his bond requirement. It takes a big issue away from his followers who think he's being treated unfairly AND provides evidence that Trump isn't a successful business person after all. The whole process has shown just how loosely he plays with the truth!

Expand full comment

Yes, contrary to Trump's claims that the Justice System is weaponized against him, it's painfully obvious to saner minds that he's getting far better treatment than the average person would ever get.

Expand full comment

Amen. We'd all be in jail if we had the criminal past he has lived.

Same with Clarence Thomas who got a $250,000 motor home from a right-wing, Nazi-loving benefactor (among many other "gifts") and didn't report any of them to his fellow justices or the IRS. If the Congress needs someone to impeach, Thomas would be a gimme.

Expand full comment

I don't think it will make much of a difference. trump has already made them think NY is out to get him and in the other cases- Biden and the Dems are out to get him no matter what. His rhetoric will get worse.

Expand full comment

Very interesting article. I knew Trump was touchy about his “wealth factor” but he is obsessive about it. Weakness

No wonder Putin is able to play the snake charmer to Trump’s serpentine nature.

Expand full comment

According to Jeff Tiedrich, Lauren Boebert is quite the “snake charmer”as well.

Expand full comment

Thank you Mr K: for giving thr straight truth on dt. His court cases have and are showing who he is. Perhaps every time he talks or takes a side he shows everyone what and to whine he is about.

Thr truth over time should be the most revealing

Expand full comment
author

I still believe the truth prevails

Expand full comment

Your words to God's ears. I pray all the time for God to make sure that truth prevails.

But I still day dream about the out if control bus with orange animal in its crosshairs

I admit it!!!!

Expand full comment

Although it may take longer than we might like, I agree.

Expand full comment

Linda, the Big Mac diet could do the trick.

Expand full comment

Stand back and stand by with the ketchup.

Expand full comment

😳😆

Expand full comment

It's got to be said through a bigger sound system than this blog. I love the blog but Adam needs a WAY BIGGER stage and partners like Cheney, Flake, and other Constitutional Republicans. Unfortunately, post-election may be too late for the Republic.

Expand full comment
founding

Well Adam you made me feel a little better. I was looking at it like the rest of the media who are saying he got lucky - and while he did monetarily, his ego is YUGE and so having to ask for a lower bond must have hurt more than if he could have paid it and proven he had the $$. Thank you.

Expand full comment
author

absolutely

Expand full comment

The Republican Party was always the party of law and order. Now it is the party that supports a life long crook as well as supporting those January 6 criminals who hurt so many law enforcement officers. One can ask what does the Party stand for.

Expand full comment

The party has lost it's soul. It's now held hostage by a domestic psychopath, foreign adversaries, and transnational crime, which is connected to both afore mentioned entities. This toxic organization is gravely hurting our country and world and must be ended at the ballot box. A new conservative party should replace it led by ethical patriots like Adam.

Expand full comment

Hi, Mr. Kinzinger....Such wonderful writing today is marred by a number of typos...Be glad to be a free proofreader if you need one. Thanks for your leadership.

Expand full comment
author

Ya...it happens

Expand full comment
founding
Mar 25Liked by Adam Kinzinger

I'm just grateful you post! Thank you! You give us hope!

Expand full comment

Yes yes he does!!!

Expand full comment

He is likely underwater on all his properties and has no net worth at all. Or perhaps he is worth just $175,000 net. There is now a state appointed conservator in charge of all of the Trump organization properties. She knows what they’re worth and what they have on them. She may be telling them that that’s all he’s got net and a complete liquidation.

Expand full comment
Mar 26·edited Mar 26

On Mary Trump's substack today she enlisted a legal expert to discuss the reduction of money that donald will supposedly pay, how this will not lessen don's fine & that he is still accruing more debt each day from the continuing large amount of interest. His attorney enraged one of his judges who stated that this does not change the law or the fact that the conviction is in & that donald & his sons committed financial crimes, along with their employees. Mary's guest proposed that this will not go well for trump in the financial criminal courts that he still faces. (Will his hate rallies now end, as he has to be in court?) Donald was observed to be staring intensely at his attorney while the guy flailed before an uncharacteristically angry judge who was telling donald's attorney that he had no case & that he was angry about the delay tactics at the zero hour...we'll see. One thing I know is that the media will do a half-assed job of reporting the truth as we move forward. Glad to have your continuing insight Adam, throughout this whole time of don the con's conning our country. Make all the typos you want, the message got out loud & clear!

Expand full comment

I didn’t think I could get anymore cynical. There is no bottom. This country is for the rich; end of story. My disillusionment is suffocating me.

Expand full comment

Fight back against the disillusionment. That's what the bad guys want, for us to give up. Take a break, relax a bit. Keep hope alive, stay the course, and never give up. That's how we'll win.

Expand full comment

Thank you! I needed a pep talk. I think I’m suffering from “moral injury” at witnessing the revelation of how many Americans might be described as evil. They know better, many of them. Evil intentions are the only explanation. I preferred it when I thought they were simply “uninformed”.

Expand full comment

GG well said. Suffocating is accurate

Expand full comment

Donald J Trump’s court situations today make it abundantly clear that in the United States, there are tiers of justice, and that he is at the top. I will not be surprised if, at the end of the trial,the court takes the 175 million as payment in full. It will not surprise me, if Trump walks away from the hush money case without so much as a slap on the wrist. The only justice to which Donald J Trump will be subjected will be justice by the people, for the people, if we have the will to vote in massive, unquestionable numbers against him in November.

Expand full comment

These two cases (criminal and civil) wholly deflate the two claims that have drawn so many voters to Con Don - his self-professed superior business acumen and his self-professed great fortune, both now proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be entirely baseless. Do we really need to hear Stormy D.'s testimony to know, with certainty, that rapist Trump, when running for president in 2016, lied to protect yet a third false image - of faithful husband? Trump is unworthy of trust, anyone's vote, any office, high or low. Voter beware.

Expand full comment

The first question on every voter’s mind should be: will he get away with it? 50/50 chance. This proto Mussolini is leading the GOP march toward full control of all branches of the government, and with it the frightening power to amend the Constitution into their own authoritarian image, If he is leading us off the cliff, we should at least be aware of what will happen when people follow this pied piper

It’s true, it’s true! Trump is a cheap and worn imitation of a human being, a preposterous jackanape to be remembered as a polyp on the donkey dung on the deathbed of a fetid, deceased presidency.

While we suffer and watch in horror as he survives almost every rule of decency and law, he still lives a life of constipated intelligence who cannot be bothered with the reality of facts, and is one who lacks a life of philosophic thought and identity outside of his daily truthsocialathons which emanate from the bowels of Mar-a-lago toilet. Talk of human scum and dung.

.America is looking on in horror as DT daily rails against the constitution with his diarrhea mouth, constipated brain, and vulgarian vocabulary, There isn’t enough toilet paper in the world to wipe away the harm Donald Trump is doing as he s**ts on the press, sluts his stuff on women, the courts, immigrants, Muslims, Democrats, protesters and anyone who disagrees with him,

With Republicans having veto-proof control in many states, they can do something that has never been done before—hold a constitutional convention, and then ratify new amendments that are put forth. To date, all amendments have been initiated from Congress where two-thirds of both houses are required. In either case, 38 states would be needed to ratify the amendments. The Republicans are well on their way.

Our Ship of State which for many has been the flagship of democracy will than cease to exist. Gone collective bargaining, abortion outlawed, progressive income just a remembrance of times past, farewell to class action law suits, privatizing of social security, enter forced “free choice” in all school systems, and so on The dream of the Gestapo Old Party come true: outlaw the New Deal and its social democratic programs. And lastly, the end of ‘big ‘government except when it comes to women’s right . And if the God and Guns party get everything they want, they could end separation of church and state and undo other portions of the Bill of Rights

Will he get away with it? Almost half of the electorate voted for him in the primaries leaving us with the conclusion and appalling reality that Trump may get away with it. And in getting away with it he will have changed and degraded the norms governing American presidents. Nightmares flood my mind when I think of the generations to come totally dismissive of the norms of constitutional democracy.

Is all this the legacy of a giant killer who has written off a democratic future for America? A giant city on the shill. A Mourning for America.

Expand full comment

“Trump is a cheap and worn imitation of a human being, a preposterous jackanape to be remembered as a polyp on the donkey dung on the deathbed of a fetid, deceased presidency.”

Yes, Ilene, but how do you REALLY feel.

But I must correct you. You said “almost half of the electorate voted for him in the primaries”, which just isn’t true. Maybe half of the *votes in the Republican primaries were for trump, but that’s a small percentage of the total electorate. The “true believers” vote in the primaries. In Michigan, you have to declare yourself a Republican or a Democrat to vote in the primary. I, for one, am not willing to do that, as I am neither.

Expand full comment