RLL 117: Trump Convicted

You're listening to Radio Looks List and I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 117. The title of this episode is Trump Convicted. Alright, well I hope everybody's been having a good week.

It was certainly an eventful week over this past week. There's no doubt about that. I had a good week. I took the whole week off of work, so that's always a good week. Unfortunately, I do have to go back to school, so to speak, on Monday.

I always complain about that. I don't want to go back to school. Well, I guess I'm going to have to. But anyway, that's what happens when you get to be grown up. You've got to go to work. I tell you, I miss those days when I had summer vacation.

That would be just like the greatest thing ever. One of these days, maybe I'll get to retire here. Who knows? But right now, I just have to take my weeks when I can get them. But it was a good week. The weather was nice.

I got some things done that I wanted to get done. It's always funny. I have these high hopes I'm going to get all this stuff. I've got this big list. Oh, I'm going to get that done while I'm on vacation.

Oh, I'm going to get that done while I'm on vacation. I probably end up getting maybe like a quarter of the stuff done that I wanted to get done. But I made some progress, so that's good. Anyway, it's kind of interesting, too.

This is really the first day that I've actually felt fully awake, fully recharged. I really got run down over the past several months, and I could feel it. And it just seemed like I was just always dragging around, tired.

And I finally got, I think I got myself caught up on my rest and that type of thing. It was a nice day. I was out doing some yard work and worked a couple hours, did some weeding, that kind of stuff. And anyway, at the end of it, I went and I cleaned up, took a shower.

I was looking at my bed and I thought, you know, it would be really nice to take a nap.

So I did.

I laid down for about two hours. I had a great sleep this afternoon. I woke up, I couldn't even remember what day it was. I was like, wait a minute, this is Saturday. Oh, yeah, this is Saturday. I guess it gets like that sometimes on vacation.

But, you know, it kind of reminded me, like, when I was a kid, my mom would make me take a nap.

And I hated it. I didn't want to take a nap.

And now that I'm an adult, you know, I think I'd give half my earthly possessions to be able to take a nap. And I can't do it usually. But that's one of the nice things about vacation. I don't know, maybe that's just I'm an old fogey or something like that.

You know, it's like, what did you do on vacation? I took a nap. You know, that was the highlight of my vacation. So, I don't know. Like I say, maybe that's just I'm an old fogey or something. Anyway, well, that was my week this past week.

Oh, I did get a chance to do some bike riding yesterday. I went out on the, there's a bike trail here. And I haven't been on it for a while. It's the Loveland Bike Trail. It's actually an old railroad right-of-way.

And I did my longest ride that I've ever done before. I did 30 miles. I did 15 miles out, 15 miles back. So, it actually worked like 15 .8 miles or 30 .8 miles total for the round trip. That's the longest single bike trip I've ever done.

So, I was kind of happy about that. So, anyway, that was some fun having a chance to do that. I'm going to turn a fan on here a little bit. It gets a little bit stuffy in this room in here. You know, maybe it's all the hot air that I'm blowing around, I guess.

I don't know. Anyway, so, turning to some events from this past week. I put this as sort of the top story, the lead story. It was Trump convicted. As we all know, that's been in the news quite a bit. And, I mean, I personally was not surprised by it.

I haven't talked a lot about it in leading up to this. But, I mean, it was pretty obvious, I think, that they were going to get him on this. Not because I think that there's any sound legal basis for what was done.

But they were going to get him, by hook or by crook. I mean, this is weaponized justice. And I really think that's the biggest takeaway from all of this. I think the thing that's the most dangerous is the fact that the American justice system has been weaponized publicly.

Very publicly. And, in fact, I think that Tucker Carlson had a, I think he actually had a good comment. You know, I should have saved this. Let me see if I can get his reaction to this. Because I think he had some insightful comments to say on it.

Let me see. Hopefully I saved that someplace. Oh, yeah. This was a post that he put out on X on the day of the conviction. That was Thursday, May the 30th. And this is what Tucker Carlson said. Import the third world, become the third world.

I think he's talking about the origins of the judge in this case, Juan Merchan. He says, that's what we just saw. This won't stop Trump. He'll win the election if he's not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world.

Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family. And, yeah, yeah, I think so. I think that I really do believe this is an indefensible conviction. And, you know, some people, you know, my attitude toward Donald Trump is this.

I'm not somebody who worships at the feet of Donald Trump. I don't think that he's the messiah. I don't think that he's infallible. You know, Donald Trump, he's a flawed character. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

But, yeah, he's someone who has really been, for a lot of people, a symbol of the older America, a symbol of sort of the historic American nation, if you want to call it that. And he's somebody, and I think this is an angle in talking about Donald Trump, but I think this is one of the reasons why he's hated so much by the establishment, because he really is a symbol of the earlier Protestant America.

He's essentially a political Protestant. Now, I know he's a very flawed individual. At times he has, you know, he's done some things that, well, I mean, are sinful. And I don't think, in my own observation, I don't think he probably is a Christian, but I do think he's a cultural Protestant.

And I think his political inclinations, in my opinion, are essentially sort of historic Protestant American politics. He believes, I do think, in limited government. He has given speeches, and some very good speeches, on support for the nation-state.

So he's someone who believes in the Westphalian world order. I've talked some about that, and I've written some about that on my blog, and talked some about that on the podcast as well. And that is where the highest the Westphalian world order, that's what came out of the Thirty Years' War that was settled in 1648.

And that war was between the Protestant forces, Protestant nations of Europe, and the Roman Catholic forces. And the Protestant forces won, and essentially what it did is it created the modern world, the modern system we have of international relations, the idea that the nation-state is the highest form of government, and that nations are essentially legal persons.

And just like you can't go and punch your neighbor in your face, you can't go as one nation and attack another nation, and seize its territory, or try to interfere in the internal functioning of your neighbor.

Just like you don't go barge into somebody's house and you say, Hey, I don't like the color of your carpet. I mean, you don't have a right to do that. And in nations, it's the same way in which they relate to one another.

You don't have a right to go barge into your neighbor nation's country and essentially tell them you don't like the color of the carpet they're putting down, or whatever. The nations have a right to order their own internal affairs as they see fit, nation-states.

And, of course, this is something that's always been hated by the Roman Catholic Church. There was a quote, and I don't have it here handy. I'm not going to read it right now. But the pope at the time, I believe his name was Innocent X, he just railed on the Westphalian world order.

And he talked about how it was invalid, et cetera, et cetera, for all time. And he just hurled curses at the world. But he hated the idea that the nation-state was the highest level of authority because it meant that Rome, it meant that the papacy couldn't interfere in the internal workings of nations.

They couldn't appoint kings in this type of thing, of nations. They couldn't tell the nations what to do, just like they had done all throughout the medieval period. The Reformation put an end to all of that.

The Westphalian world order is geopolitical Protestantism. There's a quote that was from Samuel Adams. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I believe he was President John Adams' cousin.

I think that was his relationship. I know they were part of the same family. I think they were cousins. But he gave a speech before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And he said, I think this may not be an exact quote, but it's close.

He says, you know, today the reign of political Protestantism has begun. And, I mean, that's what the Constitution of the United States really represents. That is political Protestantism, the idea that you have limited government, the idea that you have maximum personal freedom, things like freedom of speech, which has been very much under assault by the Zionists in the United States here recently.

And it's not just the Zionists that are opposed to it. They happen to be the ones that are the most aggressive in attacking that right now. But there have been other groups that do as well. But that's part of political Protestantism, is defending freedom of speech, defending the right to private property, having inalienable rights.

Well, inalienable, maybe that's not the best way to say it. But having God-given constitutionally guaranteed rights, like the right to free speech, as we were just talking about, that is just essential to the personal liberty of any people.

And governments do not have a right to abridge that, although they do. But at least here, one of the blessings we have as Americans is that we have that written down in a document. And it does make it harder for tyrants to encroach on that liberty.

Of course, the best reason to have the right to free speech is to preach the gospel. I mean, there's lots of people in our government who, I think, love to have the preaching of the gospel eliminated.

But Donald Trump, yeah, I think Donald Trump, I think the ultimate reason why he is hated so much is because essentially he is a political Protestant. And again, I'm not saying that Donald Trump's perfect.

I'm not saying Donald Trump's not without flaws. I'm not trying to defend every single thing that Donald Trump's ever said or done. But I think he does stand for that. And that is deeply offensive to the kinds of people that we have who are in positions of authority in our country today.

And I think that's really one of the, in my opinion, that's the reason for just the rage and the hatred that they have for him. And it's also the rage and the hatred they have. I mean, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you have the same, if you are a political Protestant, you are targeted.

You are not liked. You, you know, the establishment of this country does not like you. And they make that very clear, how much they don't like you. They do that on a continual basis. So, yeah, they're really gunning for Donald Trump.

And, you know, I think what Tucker Carlson said especially there, he says, you know, anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and to your family. And that's exactly right. And there are plenty of people out there that are trying to defend this stuff.

Of course, you would expect the Democrats would do this, but there are a lot of Republicans out there that are trying to push this type of thing as well. That don't like Trump, that want to get rid of him.

And are quite happy to join the chorus of those who are calling for him to be, you know, scrubbed from the presidential ticket and this type of thing. I thought there was an interesting post. Well, I thought that I had it here.

It was a piece that was out by Jonathan Turley. Oh, here it is. This is a piece of his that was published in The Hill is the name of the newspaper. It's a Washington-based newspaper. Jonathan Turley, if you ever watch Fox News, he's, I guess you'd call him their legal analyst, and he's a law professor at George Washington University.

He's a Democrat, but he's somebody, you know, I've listened to him over the years, and I believe he's a fair-minded man. He's someone who does respect the Constitution. And here's what he says here. He says, I'll just read a little bit of this thing here.

This is what Jonathan Turley says. He says, And here's a few things. I'm not going to read all of it, but I'll just touch on this. Turley lays out a few of the problems. He groups the problems with the case against Trump and the conviction of Trump, I should say, into four categories.

He starts off with the judge.

Actually, the judge is the judge.

This is only the latest in the litany of Trump cases where Mershon has meted out tough rulings against Trump and his organization. With any other defendant, there would likely be outrage over his selection.

Mershon donated to President Biden, even though the state bar cleared that violation based on the small size of the contribution. It later stressed that no such contributions were appropriate for a judge.

We learn later that Mershon has contributed to a group to stop the GOP and Trump. Mershon's daughter is also a Democratic organizer who has helped raise millions against Trump and the GOP for the Democrats.

So yeah, this is Juan Mershon. I saw something earlier. I was doing some research on him, and the donations he made were something in the range of like 15 bucks or something like this to Joe Biden. And there was $15 he gave to a couple of political organizations.

I don't know if they were PACs, maybe, in the range of like $10 to $15. Probably in total, it looked to me like his total contributions were a whopping $40. So you say, well, what's the big deal? Well, you know, for a judge, judges should not be making political contributions.

And even the, what was it, the, there was a court in New York, the state of New York that said that. Let's see if I can find that here. It says the state bar cleared that violation based on the small size of the, oh, it was the Bar Association.

So this was the New York Bar Association that later said, it stressed that no such contributions were appropriate for a judge. So this was a New York State Bar Association saying, yeah, you know, it's really not appropriate for a judge to make political contributions.

If you think about it, yeah, I mean, that would make sense, right? Especially in a case like this. And it's interesting that this guy was handpicked. You know, why was he handpicked? I haven't really been able to find out all that much about him.

And I'm sure that maybe there's people that know more about this than I do. Just some of the articles that I saw, I didn't see anything specifically why he was handpicked. My guess would be because he was somebody who was willing to go through with what is in, certainly in my mind, and I think the mind of many people, a very fraudulent trial.

And he was willing to do this. He was willing to do the dirty work. And this is Turley, he continues here, I'll quote from Turley's article, quote, to his credit, CNN legal analyst, Eli Honig has previously said that this case was legally dubious, uniquely targeted Trump, and could not succeed outside of an anti-Trump district.

On the judge, he recently challenged critics on the fairness of assigning a Biden donor whose earmarked donations for resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump's radical right-wing legacy. He asked, how would folks have been, would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to re-elect Donald Trump, maggot forever?

Absolutely not. Well, yeah, of course not. So I mean, you know, this judge was obviously biased. There's another section, so that was, he, say, Turley divided his, the problems with the case into four sections.

So that was the judge. And there's a second one was the charges themselves. And he says, writes Turley, a leading threshold issue would be the decision to allow Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Brigg to effectively try Trump on violations of federal law.

So yeah, so here's a guy, you know, he's a Manhattan District Attorney, but he's prosecuting this trial on a violation of federal law. Well, you don't prosecute federal, you know, the supposed violation of a federal law in a local court.

You don't do that. And it talks about, you know, the Federal Election Commission likewise found no basis for a civil fine. The Justice Department declined any criminal charges against Trump under the federal election law over the alleged hush money payments.

So the feds looked at the thing and said, nah, we're going to pass on that. But this Alvin Brigg, he was all over that. So yeah, that's a problem there. And it talks about the evidence. Judge Mershon allowed a torrent of immaterial and prejudicial evidence to be introduced into the trial by the prosecution.

That included testimony from porn actress Stormy Daniels that went into details about having sex with Trump. She included a clear suggestion that Trump raped her. After this utterly disgraceful testimony, Mershon expressed regret, but actually blamed the defense counsel despite their prior objections to the testimony.

So there's that issue. And then he talks about the instructions that were given to the jury. Even with all the reversible errors, some of us held out hope that there might be a hung jury. That hope was largely smashed by Mershon and his instructions to the jury.

The court largely used standard instructions in a case that was anything but standard. However, the instruction also allowed for doubt as to what the jury would ultimately find. When a verdict came in, we were still unsure what Trump was convicted of.

So we're not even sure what... So I guess Trump was convicted. He was a very bad person. He's done some horrible things. But we're not really sure exactly what. That seems to be essentially what Jonathan Turley is saying here.

So yeah, this was not a good day for the U .S. justice system. It was not a good day for America. There's another article I found here this evening when I was doing some research. And this one's by Julie Kelly.

And if you've followed any of the stuff going on with, say, the J6 trials, you know, all the January 6th defendants, she has just been tirelessly covering that for really the last, I don't know, at least three years.

I don't know. It seems like from almost the time that whole thing started. So I'd say at least three years,.

Maybe longer than that.

She has been busy writing and interviewing and talking about that particular case. And she has a post out here. It's a piece posted on her substack. It's titled, The Grin of Evil and the Posts of Cowards.

And she subtitles it, Successful tyrants also prevail because their opposition is craven, impotent, and feckless. On that score, Joe Biden, again, drew the luck of the Irish. So she writes here, Joe Biden can even wait 24 hours before publicly gloating about the history-making criminal conviction of former President Donald Trump.

Under the guise of announcing a proposed ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Gaza war, Biden took to a podium in the White House state dining room at 1 .30 p .m. on Friday. He began his statement not with details of the peace plan, but rather with a lecture about how the rule of law prevailed in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump.

Yeah, this is something I always love. And these are these Democrats that like to come out and talk like this. But they like to come out and say, No one is above the law. You know, they give this very pompous sort of way that they talk about this.

No one is above the law. You know, and some of the people that do this the worst. Hillary Clinton is horrible about this. She loves to go and talk like that. I remember at some point, this was a number of years ago, there was like a thing about, I don't know, it was Roe v. Wade.

The whole thing about abortion was coming up. And of course, this was before that Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. But she was out there. At one point, she was talking about, It's the law of the land, you know.

And again, this sort of very pompous, sort of unctuous way of talking. And it's just like, Oh, please. You know, and to hear some of these people talk the way they do, it's really truly gagging. Because, of course, some of them are people who are and act very much like they're above the law.

But anyway, so, you know, Julie Kelly continues writing here. She talks about, Oh, she's quoting Biden here. And this is what she says. This is a quote from Joe Biden. Donald Trump has given every opportunity to defend himself, end quote.

Biden said of his 2024 Republican presidential rival, quote, and after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felon counts, end quote. So, yeah, this is one of the things that the anti-Trumpers love to talk about.

Now, and I knew that they were going to do this. As soon as he was convicted, every time they go out and talk about Donald Trump, the headline's always going to be convicted felon Donald Trump, convicted former president Donald Trump or convicted presidential candidate Donald Trump, something like this.

And that's just going to be just repeated ad nauseum between now and the election. And one of the things, too, that Julie Kelly talked about was the evil grin that Joe Biden had at the press conference.

This is what she writes. She says, after several minutes of stumbling through more prepared remarks about the ceasefire proposal, Biden started his signature brittle march out of the room. A reporter asked a retreating Biden to respond to Trump's accusations that he is responsible for turning the former president into a political prisoner.

And she goes on to write, the Dr. Evil grin sparked immediate outrage on the right. Trump's team quickly turned the clip into a campaign ad.

Biden's signature grin.

Has gotten him a long way in politics. He is little more than a glad-handing blowhard with low-level intelligence and a tan of Irish charm who just happens to know better than almost anyone in Washington how to game the system for political and personal benefit.

But this grin was different. It was not the smile of a dunce once again shocked by his own underdating success and dumb luck, but the sadistic expression of a twisted tyrant gratified by tormenting his political foe and everyone around him.

So, yeah. She goes on to write about how Biden enjoys inflicting suffering on others. Inflicting pain is how sick freaks like Biden maintain power. The harder the boot on the throat, the bigger the grin.

So, yeah. It's really disturbing. That look on his face as he's walking out of the room. Yeah, that's an evil grin of an evil man. I call him Jesuit Joe because he does have very significant Jesuit influences in his background.

And I mentioned the fact that Donald Trump is a political Protestant. Well, Joe Biden is a political Romanist. And, you know, this is an angle that I don't think that I've really seen anybody bring up, but I think this is a very important dynamic.

I mean, this is political Romanism versus the historic American political Protestantism. And, you know, right now the political Romanists have their boot on our throat. And Joe Biden's enjoying it. So, you know, that's what's going on here.

Pride Month as the Celebration of Sin

Well, anyway, so enough about Donald Trump,.

Even though that was.

My lead story here. I wanted to talk a little bit, too. You know, this is, and June is always one of my favorite months, okay? I mean, it's a beautiful time of year. When I was a kid, school got out. Unfortunately, I'm not a kid anymore, as I said, so school doesn't get out.

But, anyway, June's a fun month. And it's a good month. I've always enjoyed the month of June. But they've turned it into something that's not so great. You know, now it's a month, I think last year I called it the month formally known as June.

The reason I said that, of course, is because it's Pride Month. And it's where we can go and celebrate sin the whole month long and see what a wonderful, amazing thing this is. There's a lot of memes out there.

And, of course,.

All these corporations just go out of their way to push the whole Pride Month celebration. Now, some people have talked about the fact that apparently this year, here in 2024, that some of these companies,.

These corporations,.

Have kind of turned down the heat on the whole Pride Month thing. There's even some indication that public support, at least they were talking about among Republicans, for example, has declined for so-called same-sex marriage, which isn't marriage.

That's a violation of the definition of it. That's not marriage.

And, of course,.

One of the things you see is, you know, every business from every corner feels like they have to get in on the act. In fact, I saw one meme today. It was kind of interesting. It was done, it was a meme sort of done in, it was based on the Biblical account of Exodus, you know, where the final plague was going to be set on Egypt, and, of course, God told, you know, the Israelites,.

Well, you know, that you have to,.

You know, put the blood of the sacrificed Passover lamb on the door, on the lintel of their house. And it showed a guy that was doing something like that, you know, he's dressed up in sort of the old clothing, and he was brushing on rainbow colors on the lintel of his house, and the caption was something.

To the effect of,.

Every corporation in the month of June. And that's actually pretty appropriate. I mean, I think, you know, so many of these corporations, I don't know if they actually believe this stuff,.

If all the people involved.

In it actually believe this stuff, but they seem, they have to act. They think they have to act.

As though they do.

And I've been looking at a, in fact, I'm looking at something on X right now, and it's a picture. Let's see, I'll show this here. You know, even the, let's see here. There we go. You know, even sports get into this whole thing.

This is a thing, this was actually put out on X, posted on X by Josh Dawes.

He's a Baptist,.

And he seems to be a genuine Christian, and I know he's opposed to this type of thing. But he puts out a, it was a picture, I guess, it was posted to X by Major League Baseball, you know, and it's got the Major League Baseball logo, but it's got the pride colors in the background.

And that's just so typical. And I found out even my hometown team, the Cincinnati Reds,.

They're going to have their.

Gay pride day next Friday. I guess, I don't know, what is that, the 5th or the 6th, I guess it is. You know, I'd like to be able to go to the ballgame. I guess it's next Friday, the 7th is what it is.

You know, I'd like to be able.

To go to a ballgame on Friday. It'd be a good ballgame to watch, but I'm not going down to that. You know, that's very disappointing. In fact, as far as I am aware, I have heard there's only one Major League team that does not have a gay pride day, and that's the Texas Rangers.

I did read that somewhere. I don't know if that's still true or not, but I do recall reading that last year. But all the other, all of the 29 teams do this.

Unfortunately.

And he's got, I'm just kind of scrolling through Josh Dawes' feed here. It's got a post out by the U .S. Department of Education,.

You know,.

Filled with all the rainbow colors.

And, you know,.

Every student should feel safe attending school in America free from discrimination and valued for who they are. That means creating a welcoming and safe learning environment for every LGBTQI plus student and ensuring educators have resources to support, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm not going to read any more of that. Now, here's another one here. June is Groomer Awareness Month. Sesame Street. So here's Josh Dawes.

He has a,.

This is a post out by Sesame Street. Happy Pride Month from Sesame Street. Today and every day we celebrate and uplift the LGBTQIA plus. So they've even got an extra letter in there over and above what, who was that?

The Department of Education. The Department of Education, they only had six letters. Let's see, with a plus there. Let's see. Sesame Street,.

They've got,.

They got seven. They got seven letters and a plus. So I guess Sesame Street, they celebrate Pride Month even more. It's kind of like,.

You know,.

It was that, that account in, I think it's in, I can't remember if it was in First or Second Kings, but it talks about King Jehu of Israel, the Northern Kingdom.

And he was,.

He was a real, he was a drainer of swamps,.

You know,.

And one of the things he did is he got rid of the priests of Baal. And as a, as a ruse,.

You know,.

He said that,.

Well,.

Ahab worshipped Baal a little, served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him much,.

You know,.

And he got all the priests.

Of Baal in.

And he actually had them executed.

But he did it,.

He did it,.

The way he got them.

To congregate was he pretended as though.

He was,.

Was,.

Was a supporter of Baal.

So,.

It looks like,.

I guess,.

The Department of Education celebrates Pride Month.

A little,.

But Sesame Street celebrates Pride Month much. That seems to be,.

Be the,.

What they are,.

And I don't think that's a ruse from them.

Now,.

I remember watching Sesame Street as a kid,.

You know,.

It was Big Bird,.

You know,.

That type of thing. It was a cookie monster,.

But, you know,.

Now it's all about.

LGBTQIA+.

So,.

They're pretty happy.

With that.

And, now here's somebody, this is kind of interesting, he says, encouraging news.

To kick off.

The Noahic Covenant Appreciation Month tomorrow. It's got a picture of Noah's Ark there in the rainbow.

So,.

That's the appropriate use of the rainbow,.

And of course,.

As Christians,.

You know, I mean,.

It's,.

You know,.

We find it offensive.

To have,.

You know,.

The rainbow co-opted.

For,.

You know,.