Image for online fundraiser by New Jersey deli owner Jim Boggess [Gofundme]
FLEMINGTON — About a month after Jim Boggess posted a "white history month" sign in the window of his Main Street deli, an ensuing lack of business caused him to close his business. This despite a public apology and handshake with Bhakti Curtis, the mixed-race customer who had raised a ruckus over it. Now, beset by…
MAGA rabble-rouser @catturd2 is crowing about his cash flow.
"So this is happening right now - I’m getting community notes on anything that gets a bunch of views," reads a tweet from Friday. "Even if they basically agree with me … this is how the left tries to get that tweet demonetized."
Community Notes are Twitter/X's effort to perform crowdsourced moderation and fact-checks.
But apparently the trolling is taxing some of his profits.
It's unclear exactly how much the jokester is losing specifically, however in a separate tweet, he did note there's been some attrition.
"I lost 4,000 followers today but I’m totally fine with that to purge the bots (as announced on X)," it reads.
Journalist David Corn pointed out that some of the cockamamie claims made by the @catturd2 creator didn't pass the smell test and perhaps there shouldn't be too much shock that there's consequences.
"Hard to believe @catturd2 was spreading scientific misinformation about an important public health issue," he responded after learning about the supposed money woes.
Corn pointed to a post where @catturd2 weighed including a supposed 2008 snippet from a paper published by former Director of NIAID Dr. Anthony Fauci suggesting many deaths back in the early 1900s weren't tied specifically to sickness but the harm caused by protective measures — masks — that were used to fend spread.
"They discovered that most of the victims of the Spanish Flu didn't die form the Spanish Flu," a circled portion of a screen grab reads. "They died from bacteria pneumonia. And the bacterial pneumonia was caused by.... Wait for it, wait for it... wearing masks."
Defense attorney and liberal activist Ron Filipkowski said the fact checks were "cutting in to his revenue."
Ten days before defendant Donald Trump is set to go on trial in his hush money case in a Lower Manhattan criminal courtroom, he and his attorneys are fixing for the judge to recuse himself. And they're doing so by raising concerns about past political contributions he made all the way to quoted comments he said in an article.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann believes the ammunition to get a recusal is weak.
"That is, again, laughable," he said, adding "the audience for this brief is not the court, it is the court of public opinion — and just a sliver of that court of public opinion."
The motion filed by Trump's team asks New York Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the trial slated to start on April 15, to step away because there is an "unacceptable appearance of impropriety."
The papers say Merchan has a conflict of interest involving his daughter's political consulting work for a company called Authentic, tied to various Democratic groups and candidates.
It reads: "Personal political views may not be a basis for recusal. But profiting from the promotion of a political agenda that is hostile to President Trump, and has included fundraising solicitations based on this case, must be. Accordingly, President Trump respectfully requests that the Court recuse itself."
But Weissmann points out that the effort is old hat since Merchan already rejected a similar one last August and received clearance from the state's Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics.
As far as Merchan's comments in an Associated Press article that ran in March — they don't add up to much, according to Weissmann.
Merchan spoke about prepping for a historic trial like the one involving the 45th president as "intense.”
He also said that he is trying “to make sure that I’ve done everything I could to be prepared and to make sure that we dispense justice."
“There’s no agenda here,” said Merchan in the article. “We want to follow the law. We want justice to be done. That’s all we want."
Weissmann again wondered about the relevance of making hay over those statements.
"In connection with all of those statements, he said, 'I want to be clear, I'm making general comments; none of it should be taken to reference this case,'" Weissmann paraphrased. "He was talking about what the court in general does, in front of it, what is the role of the rule of law and the judge in the system — but he pointedly said in that piece, 'I am not in any way going to talk about or reference this specific case.'"
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) posted on X Friday, in honor of families who lost a loved one serving in the Armed Forces.
"Today, we honor our Gold Star Spouses whose loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice," Tuberville posted. "Our nation is forever indebted to you and your family. Thank you for your service, strength, and resilience."
Commenters on social media responded with rage and indignation, reminding the former football coach that he spent months blocking hundreds of military promotions in an attempt to force the military to rescind a policy that let women take medical leave to have abortions in states where the procedure was legal. The holds ultimately strained military readiness so severely that even his fellow Republicans forced him to back down.
"@TTuberville likes gold star families so much that he delayed, purposefully, dozens of promotions," posted the account @DittiePE. "Doing so almost gave us even MORE gold star families for Tommy to like."
"SAID THE MAN WHO STOPPED PROMOTIONS, AND SCREWED UP MILITARY LIVES, EVERYWHERE!!!" posted actor Bill Smitrovich. "GO AWAY!!!! COACH POP WARNER FOOTBALL IN RUSSIA."
"Trying to rip off veterans again and buy a new truck?" posted the account @DSWiese.
"You stopped the military promotions - hurting the military, their families and certainly the spouses," posted comedian Jenelle V. "Your words are empty. #HonorUSAMilitary"
"Aren't you the guy who blocked military promotions for months?" posted the account @ThomB01. "NOW you're 'honoring' the military? Hypocrite."
"This is rich coming from you," posted the account @OldSoul3333. "Using Gold Star families as a prop is extremely disgusting but not surprising coming from you. There’s nothing you can do to earn respect from decent moral people. Nothing."
"You of all people have no right to say anything to our military after you treated them and their leadership so shabbily," wrote the account @DonnaResist, which identified herself as an Air Force brat, on Friday.