Trump Argues For Absolute Right Of Presidents To Loot And Pillage In Copyright Lawsuit
Extremely on brand.
Trump's legal team is tryin' it. Again.
Today's WTF-ery comes to us from the copyright infringement suit filed by one Edmond Grant, AKA Eddy Grant, AKA the guy who did not fucking appreciate having his hit song "Electric Avenue" used without permission in one of Trump's ridiculous campaign videos. Trump tweeted out the video on August 12, 2020, and Twitter yanked the video for copyright infringement within a few hours. Then Twitter yanked Trump himself, and not a moment too soon, so we can't provide you with a link to the video in question. But we actually remember this one because the graphics were so embarrassingly crap — like Thomas the Tank Engine circa 1991, only worse.
Here's a still from one of Trump's briefs.
Get it? Get it? GET IT?
See Trump is a BIG CHOO CHOO TRAIN VROOM, and Biden is just a skinny dude manually pumping himself along the tracks.
Which isn't actually the dumbest thing you'll read in this post, believe it or not.
Grant and his publishing company Greenheart Music promptly sued for copyright infringement in a New York federal court on September 20, 2020. Trump then spent a year bellyaching and trying unsuccessfully to get the case dismissed. On September 28, 2021, US District Judge John G. Koeltl refused to grant Trump's motion for dismissal for failure to state a legally cognizable claim.
Trump had argued that the clip had transformed Grant's song by turning it into a work of political commentary, making it a legitimate use under the Fair Use Doctrine, but the court disagreed.
"In this case, the video's overarching political purpose does not automatically render its use of any non-political work transformative," Judge Koeltl wrote.
And that meant that time was up, and Trump was going to finally have to answer the original complaint, which he did in the most Trump-y way possible.
In the section on affirmative defenses, i.e. the part where the defendant says "yeah, well, even if I did, so what, and here is why!" Trump claimed that "Plaintiffs' claims against Defendants are barred, either in whole or in part, by the doctrines of waiver, laches, acquiescence, inequitable conduct and/or unclean hands." Which falls under the category of meh, dumb, but whatever. Obviously Grant didn't waive his rights, or wait too long to file, or do something nefarious to void his own copyright. But, okay, people say a lot of stupid shit in pleadings.
What they don't usually say is this:
Plaintiffs' claims against Donald J. Trump are barred, either in whole or in part, by Presidential absolute immunity.
BISHWAAAAAA?
Did that sorry POS just argue with a straight face that the president is free to steal copyrighted material and no one can do anything about it? There is no such thing as "Presidential absolute immunity" to do crimes. The only people on earth who had the nerve to make such a ridiculous argument got their asses handed to them by the Supreme Court last year in Trump v. Vance. And this wet fart of a man and his shameless lawyers have the nerve to come into a federal court and try this shit again?
FOH.
[Torrent Freak / Grant v. Trump, docket via Court Listener]
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Steve Bannon About To Get That Contempt Citation He's Always Wanted!
Filthy sumbitch 'bout to find out.
Steve Bannon is about to go through some things. The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 invasion of the Capitol is going balls to the wall, and soon we'll find out of the Justice Department is going to step up to the plate.
As expected, Bannon defied the subpoena and failed to show up to testify on October 14. His lawyer Robert Costello, of Michael Cohen pardon dangle fame, sent the Committee a letter claiming that his client's hands were tied because the former president had invoked executive privilege.
Jan. 6 committee releases: - Letter from Bannon attorney requesting a postponement - Letter from Thompson rejecting… https://t.co/Evg1cqoi66— Andrew Solender (@Andrew Solender) 1634660152.0
And not for nothing, but as the referral resolution notes, Bannon wasn't exactly circumspect. Here's a quote from his January 5 podcast:
It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. OK, it's going to be quite extraordinarily different. All I can say is, strap in. [...] You made this happen and tomorrow it's game day. So strap in. Let's get ready. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. [...] So many people said, 'Man, if I was in a revolution, I would be in Washington.' Well, this is your time in history.
Subtle.
The full House vote will take place tomorrow, which is basically light speed in congressional time. Apparently the Republicans are going to vote against it because LOL nothing matters anymore. But Bannon has backed both himself and the Committee into an impossible corner, because if he can get away with blowing off a congressional subpoena, then literally anyone on earth can. Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, who were employed in the White House on January 6, can at least make colorable claims of executive privilege covering their communications with Trump. But Bannon's assertion is such a transparently bullshit bad faith "fuck you" that the Committee has no choice but to put the pedal to the floor and gun it.
So now they're about to crash into the Justice Department, where Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to have to decide whether (and how fast) to prosecute Bannon for contempt of Congress. And Joe Biden's free-styling about his wish to see people who blow off the Committee prosecuted was not helpful. Because, while the Committee's decision to go after Bannon was an easy one, Garland's is really not. Because, as Politico notes, a successful contempt prosecution will require the government to prove that Bannon knew he was breaking the law, and he's got that nifty letter from his lawyer saying that he isn't. So he'll claim that he was relying on advice of counsel, not deliberately throwing sand in the gears of the investigation, and he might well get away with it.
Which is probably not reassuring to those of us still clinging to the hope that we live in a country with a functioning justice system. But if you want certainty, head on over to the Gateway Pundit or the Epoch Times, where it is always just 10 minutes 'til LOCK HER UP. Over here, we're going to have to make do with reality.
It sucks, man!
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Nebraska GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry Isn't Worried About Getting Indicted. Not At All. Not One Bit.
Did he mention he loves puppies? And Jesus? And Ford pickup trucks?
Sad news, friends! It looks like another God-fearing Republican has been cruelly targeted by the Biden FBI for telling one or two teensy little fibs — ALLEGEDLY — to mean FBI agents. Or so say Nebraska Rep. Jeff Fortenberry and his wife, who hopped on the internet last night to get their story out before the Justice Department could release the indictment they warn will be coming as soon as today.
(Look for that to drop thirty seconds after this story is published. Isn't that always the way!)
"Dear Friend," begins the open letter where Celeste Fortenberry tells her husband's tale of woe. "Jeff and I have two pieces of news to share with you. One very bad, one very good. The bad news is something we never thought we'd have to endure. You've been a friend and supporter for so long, and you deserve to hear it from us firsthand. Jeff and I made a short video so you could hear from him directly."
What follows is an impressively shameless display of self pity from a guy trying to wrap himself in God, the flag, and apple pie before the Justice Department can get a word in. The man is literally "out for a drive in my 1963 Ford F100 pickup truck," parked in a corn field with his wife and his dog asking Americans to pray for him. And we might even have fallen for it (just kidding, no we wouldn't), if we hadn't already written about this pissant whiner losing his shit over a defaced billboard calling him Jeff Fartenberry and trying to get a University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor fired for liking a Facebook post about it.
It's not entirely clear what went down here, but it appears that this dipshit allegedly found himself in the middle of an illegal campaign finance scheme in which a Nigerian billionaire funneled $180,000 in straw donations to four American political candidates. And although Fortenberry was apparently only too happy to pocket $37,000 at the LA fundraising event in question back in 2016, his wife is now incensed that "California prosecutors" would target her poor, innocent husband.
"In 2019, in the aftermath of the Bomb Cyclone, two men knocked on our door here in Lincoln," she says, admitting, "that scared me, a lot." And yet the congressman, who has multiple advanced degrees and can hardly be described as a babe in the woods, sat down for multiple interviews with the FBI, outside the presence of a lawyer. Although apparently the local police were there?
Let Celeste Fortenberry continue explaining! More from her open letter:
Jeff did agree to speak with them (don't ever do that, your innocence won't protect you) without a lawyer (ditto) in our living room, but he did call the police and ask them to stay for the conversation, because the story the FBI used to gain access to our home kept shifting.
The agents said they needed his help. Jeff assumed he was one federal official helping other federal officials in the cause of justice. His instinct, as yours would be, was to help. So, he talked to them.
Uh huh.
In the video, the congressman is fairly choked up, saying, "I feel so personally betrayed. I thought we were trying to help." Because he's an idiot, and he hopes you are, too.
Also, former Benghazi Rep. Trey Gowdy was there for some reason?
The scene was upsetting, so afterward Jeff called his friend Trey Gowdy, with whom he had served in Congress, for advice and legal representation. Jeff volunteered to give a follow-up interview with the DOJ (this time in DC). At every step the agents and prosecutors assured and reassured Jeff and Trey that Jeff was not a target. They knew he had no knowledge of the illegal donations, and was in fact a victim of that crime.
And now Joe Biden is trying to Clinton Body County this holy man of Jesus for trying to rescue Afghan Christians, which is really an attack on YOU, a Real American.
I don't know why we have been called to fight this fight. But we are fighting it, with everything we've got, for our family and for America. Maybe we can help stop people in power from using the Justice Department as a weapon against their political enemies.
By the way, Jeff is having to fight this legal battle while he is also working to rescue American citizens and Afghani Christians and allies stranded and in danger in Afghanistan—rescues the Biden State Department continues to obstruct.
It makes complete sense if you think about really. Because Fortenberry hails from Nebraska's first congressional district, where he beat his Democratic challenger by 10 points, and where Trump beat Biden by 15. So if Biden can just knock off a backbencher like Jeff, that seat will be ripe for the picking ... or something.
So then Fortenberry did what he does best, attempting to fundraise off the debacle in a since-deleted post complaining that "Biden's FBI is using its unlimited power to prosecute me on a bogus charge!"
"Unlike Swamp Creature Nancy Pelosi, I'm a principled conservative who has NEVER abused my seat in Congress to get wealthy. And right now I'm facing the Deep State's bottomless pockets," it continued. "So, please chip in a generous gift today to help me win this major fight!"
Which wasn't exactly the tone they were trying to strike with that video. Oopsie!
Anyway, Jeff and Celeste want you to know they are very good people who would never do crimes. And also — hey, you were promised good news! — their daughter just had a baby. So they are grandparents, and everyone knows it is illegal to put Grammy and Grampy in jail.
THE END, at least until they drop that indictment, which has got to be amazing considering the effort these phony assholes put into the prebuttal.
OPEN THREAD.
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Are The Nevada Republicans Okay? Do They Need A Police Man Or A Grownup?
(They are not okay. They definitely need a police man or a grownup)
How bad is the chaos in Nevada's GOP? Well, Politico interrupted its daily Dems In Disarray programming to write an article titled 'Really embarrassing': GOP erupts into swing state civil war, so pretty bad actually.
In the nuttiest of nutshells, the state party has been taken over by Stop the Steal lunatics, who are systematically trying to evict the slightly less lunatic normies who have run the county parties for years. Remember Reagan's Eleventh Commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican"? LOL, good luck with that.
The Nevada GOP is currently headed by Michael McDonald, who could most charitably be described as "a character." Here's a fun snippet from an amazing Daily Beast profile of McDonald from November when he was spearheading the effort to prove vote fraud in his home state.
While McDonald served as a board member of Miracle Flights for Kids, a children's charity, $2.2 million was borrowed from the organization's coffers to benefit a medical lien company in which he held a 33 percent interest. He allegedly accepted a $200,000 finder's fee for his efforts. The company later defaulted on the loan, and for a time moved its hustle into Nevada Republican Party headquarters. McDonald claimed not to have any role in the loan process.
He seems nice.
McDonald claims not to have any association with "an organization called the 'Proud Boys.'" And yet, those fine upstanding citizens keep appearing at county party events to make sure that McDonald's agenda sails through, or else. On April 10, they showed up at a meeting of the state party and provided the votes to censure Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, the only Republican elected statewide, for failing to support the nonsensical claims of election fraud in 2020.
In July, they shut down a meeting of the Clark County Republican Party after the police had to be called to restore order. Dueling groups claiming to represent the CCRP met later, and each has selected its own slate of officials. The normies control the CCRP's website; the loons have the support of the state party and the RNC.
Jesse Law, the America First Trumper who claims the mantle for Team Wacko, acknowledges that there were some Proud Boys at the July meeting, but called it "a sea of diverse folks." Team Less Wacko sued Law over the summer, but Clark County District Judge Susan Johnson said she had no authority over internal party disputes. A similar lawsuit filed this week to prevent the state party from holding elections tomorrow in Winnemucca failed, too.
Michael McDonald plans revenge, threatening to countersue for sanctions and expel the dissidents from the state party.
"The state party will seat Jesse's slate, and we'll move forward," he told the AP in September. "It's sad that it turned out this way."
"They just go for the throat and do what they want to do," Stephen Silberkraus, a longtime Clark County Republican leader facing expulsion, told Politico.
Have we noted before that one of Trump's many gifts to the GOP was a civil war between his cult followers and the party leaders who actually have political theories and know how to run shit? Oh, we have? Cool.
Meanwhile, nine of 16 Republicans in the state Assembly are noping out for 2023; County Republican party officials are taking their cash and going home; And Trump's chosen one Adam Laxalt, anointed with sacred orange oil to take on Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, had to testify in chucklefuck Lev Parnas's trial this morning about all the time he spends sucking up to shady characters for cash.
Despite Laxalt viewing Parnas as a "clownish guy with a gold chain," Bondy asks the ex-AG: "You're chasing him arou… https://t.co/neVGHS9rSz— Adam Klasfeld (@Adam Klasfeld) 1634311994.0
All of which is great news, according to Mike McDonald.
"This young group is coming in, these people who have never been involved before, and they're looking at the policies that President Trump had, and that's what's driving them," he said, seemingly oblivious of the fact that Dems control the statehouse, both Senate seats, three of four congressional seats, and both houses of the state legislature. And, not for nothing, but Trump lost the state by two percent.
Shine on you crazy diamonds.
[Politico / Daily Beast / LV Review Journal / LV Review Journal / NVIndy]
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