Favorite Fortnite #TheEnd Freakouts

New York Judge Juan Merchan slapped former President Donald Trump with a $9,000 contempt of court fine on Tuesday for repeatedly violating the gag order in his Manhattan hush money trial to publicly attack witnesses and jurors — and warned him that a stay on Rikers Island could be in his future if he continues on his current path.

This led some commenters on social media to praise the judge — but many others urged him to stop showing so much restraint on Trump, who has already been fined multiple times for similar violations in his civil trials.

"BREAKING: Judge Merchan fines Trump for violating gag order 9 times," wrote political influencer Ed Krassenstein on X. "Trump has officially been held in contempt of court. But I'm sure that MAGA will claim that it's because the judge is biased and because Trump is being politically targeted, right? When will Republicans ever just say, 'Trump made a mistake?'"

"The $9,000 Trump has to pay for violating his gag order is good but isn’t going to stop him," wrote political podcaster "JoJoFromJerz." "I don’t see how he makes it through this trial without spending some time in the pokey."

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MSNBC political analyst Tim O'Brien had a sober assessment. "Trump will see Justice Merchan’s $9,000 fine for violating the gag order as a reasonable cost for the ability to continue attacking the judge, court and rule of law," he wrote. "It won’t stop him."

"If any of us violated a gag order so many times, we would be in custody," wrote legal expert and commentator John Collins.

Georgia State University constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis thinks this is an ominous sign for the former president.

"Judge Merchan makes plain by holding Donald Trump in contempt that the New York gag order is a blanket one covering any statements about witnesses, jurors, (or potential jurors earlier in the process)," he wrote.

"He has little room to run to the media: a danger zone for undisciplined Trump."

Concurrent with Donald Trump's hush money trial finishing up its second week of prosecution testimony, the former president's emails to his supporters are becoming increasingly over-the-top and shrill, leading to speculation he is not only having donation problems but also the pressures of his legal problems are getting to him.

As noted by Salon's Chauncey DeVega who has been reporting on the former president's diminishing mental state and possible psychological problems, there is a growing vibe of panic in Trump's emails as evidenced by a recent one that blared: "All hell breaks loose in 24 hours!" and another declaring he is being held "hostage."

According to DeVega's report, the strident tone in the emails begging for donations are demonstrating an increasing spiral in victimhood as he sits day after day in a Manhattan courtroom while facing the possibility of jail time if convicted on just one of the 34 felony counts he is charged with related to paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

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"With the beginning of Trump’s first criminal trial in New York, his emails have only become more extreme – and will only continue to – as the 2024 election and potentially three other criminal trials are closing in on him," he wrote before pointing to the recent Trump email that stated: "Friend, in 24 hours, the hearing on my GAG ORDER will begin. I COULD BE THROWN IN JAIL AT THAT VERY MOMENT! This is what the Hate-America Deep State has always dreamed of. STAND WITH TRUMP I won’t be able to campaign. I will be muzzled and silent. And Democrats will have free rein to destroy our country."

That led DeVega to argued that, "Of course, Donald Trump is lying. There is no substantive evidence to support his fabulist conspiratorial delusions-fantasies of persecution and other harm. The corrupt ex-president is in no way a victim, except perhaps of his own apparent sociopathy if not outright psychopathy, and other parts of his obviously diseased mind."

Add to that, he wrote that there is a sense that the former president is struggling to raise money to fund both his multitude of legal teams fending off criminal indictments as well as his presidential campaign.

RELATED: Trump howls about 'unconstitutional gag order' in all-caps early morning rant

To make that point, he cited a recent Washington Post report that relayed, "In the years after Donald Trump lost the presidency to Joe Biden, Trump sent so many emails and text messages asking for money that Republican consultants warned his mailing lists could become useless. The former president’s friends told him that they were being asked for too much, too often, and Trump himself ordered aides at one point to slow the solicitations. Some of his fans, pockets emptied, mailed handwritten letters apologizing for not being able to give more. Now, as Trump and Biden prepare for a rematch, Trump’s vaunted small-dollar fundraising operation is not bringing in as much money as it once did."

"They will need to find a way to trigger more fear, pain, discomfort, terror, and other negative emotions among the MAGA people and other prospective Trump donors and voters. Those negative emotions will be the motivation for giving a literal form of protection money to Donald Trump and the MAGA leadership," the Salon columnist suggested.

You can read more here.

CNN's Erin Burnett and Paula Reid were stunned by the "incredibly effective" cross-examination by Trump lawyers of prosecution witness Keith Davidson.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) admitted that "nobody" wanted the drama she was creating by trying to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) — but she's doing it anyway.

Following a press conference Wednesday where Greene vowed to trigger a "motion to vacate" the Speaker's chair next week, she spoke to conservative podcaster Steve Bannon.

"And we have Mike Johnson going in there and basically giving a sloppy kiss to [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries and Jeffries taking him in with a great big hug and them holding and sharing the speaker's gavel together," Greene complained. "That's what's wrong for America."

"Steve, nobody wants this drama right now, but it's Mike Johnson that has completely brought it on all of us," she continued.

"Yeah, this is inconvenient. Yeah, this is something I don't want to have to do with right now. Yeah, this is something that our conference shouldn't have to go through."

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Greene insisted she did not run for Congress to "go along and get along."

"I didn't come up here to Washington to go along and get along and put it in cruise control and just have an easy job, cushy job up here in Washington while America burns down to the ground and gets taken over by George Soros and all of his protests in Hamas and fully open borders and we're being invaded and the economy falls apart and our dollar loses value and inflation continues to skyrocket and our kids have no hope for a future," she ranted.

"I'm sorry, I'm not here to participate in the uniparty, but I can't wait to deliver a vote for American voters next week so they can have a fully transparent list of everybody here in Congress that believes in the uniparty and has a membership card in the uniparty," Greene added.

"It's a coming out party, Steve, and I'm ready to deliver it."

Watch the video below from Real America's Voice.