Four Seasons Total Landscaping
A tale so bizarre it is hard to believe it is real.
An ongoing bit on Twitter (and, I am sure, elsewhere) has been to make fun of the “writers this season” as it pertains to the ridiculous plot twists and absurd characters that have populated the Trump era. I mean, if this were a TV show we would scoff at the notion that the computer repairman who had one of the Hunter Biden laptops was visually impaired. Or that the president’s cybersecurity adviser was known to regularly butt dial reporters.
I mean, what kind of a hack would write such tripe?
And then there comes this headline from the Philadelphia Inquirer, No, not that Four Seasons. How Team Trump’s news conference ended up at a Northeast Philly landscaping firm, and this first paragraph:
What began five years ago with the made-for-TV announcement of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions from the escalator of his ritzy Manhattan high-rise ended Saturday with his aging lawyer shouting conspiracy theories and vowing lawsuits in a Northeast Philadelphia parking lot, near a sex shop and a crematorium.
As many have commented since this story was told on Saturday, surely this is from an episode of Veep or Arrested Development, yes? The president’s team didn’t actually schedule a press conference to allege major electoral fraud across the street to a sex shop, did they?
Oh, yes. Yes, they did.
Trump announced: “Lawyers News Conference Four Seasons, Philadelphia, 11 a.m.,” only to delete his post minutes later and replace it with one changing the venue from the upscale Center City hotel to a similarly named business: Four Seasons Total Landscaping on industrial State Road, next to Fantasy Island Adult Books and Novelties and across the street from the Delaware Valley Cremation Center.
I actually saw the second tweet about “Four Seasons Total Landscaping” Saturday morning but it did not compute at the time (save thinking, “landscaping?”) and I went on with my day, which blissfully was spent out of doors. I did not learn of the presser until late in the evening, at which point the real news was the new president-elect.
For details of the locale and event, I would recommend Richard Hall’s piece from the Independent: I saw Donald Trump’s presidency come crashing down at Four Seasons Total Landscaping which includes photos and the following:
Amid all the drama of the last 30 minutes, it appeared no one had told him that Joe Biden had been projected the winner of the election. A member of the press asked him how these lawsuits would overturn the call for the former vice president.
“Who was it called by?”
“All of them,” came the response.
Mr Giuliani took a moment before erupting in mock incredulity: “All the networks? Wow! All the networks!” He raised out his arms and looked to the sky, for a moment looking and sounding like Larry David doing a bit. But the wind had been sucked out of him. The smile had gone.
Indeed, if one goes to the video at about 28:30 one will witness what very much does look like a Larry David bit:
Beyond the absurdity of it all, it is important to remember that the goal of this press conference was to detail very real and deeply serious evidence of electoral fraud.
However, the poll watchers they brought to the podium seem only to be able to gripe about their distance from the ballots, not that they weren’t allowed to watch the counting. Indeed, it sounds like they think they have the right to physically inspect the ballots, which I cannot imagine the law allows in any event. (They seem to think the role of watching the count is more than it actually is).
One fellow (~10:30) did claim that it looked like an “unusual pen” had been used on some of the ballots, so there’s that.
A side note, Politico reports: Man featured at Giuliani press conference is a convicted sex offender.
The first person Rudy Giuliani, the attorney for President Donald Trump, called up as a witness to baseless allegations of vote counting shenanigans in Philadelphia during a press conference last week is a sex offender who for years has been a perennial candidate in New Jersey.
“It’s such a shame. This is a democracy,” Daryl Brooks, who said he was a GOP poll watcher, said at the press conference, held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Northeast Philadelphia. “They did not allow us to see anything. Was it corrupt or not? But give us an opportunity as poll watchers to view all the documents — all of the ballots.”
[…]
Brooks was incarcerated in the 1990s on charges of sexual assault, lewdness and endangering the welfare of a minor for exposing himself to two girls ages 7 and 11, according to news accounts.
Now, his previous criminal behavior does not mean he can’t bear witness to electoral fraud, but it just strikes me that if you are going to try and make a case for major electoral malfeasance you might not want the first guy you bring up to the mic to be convicted of anything, let alone a sexual offense involving small children.
But, of course, I would have advised against holding the press conference in front of landscaping business flanked by a sex shop and a crematorium, so what do I know?
I will say the Cory Lewandowski (~28:50) gave an impassioned presentation that they may have found one deceased voter whose mail-in ballot was mailed after she died. It was, he noted, “hard evidence.”
Well, then.
What kind of “legal team” thinks any of this constitutes real and serious evidence of the magnitude needed to overturn a presidential election?
I guess one that doesn’t know the difference between the Four Seasons Hotel and a landscaping businesss.
Come on, don’t you find it appropriate that this press conference touting Donald Trump was held next to a sex shop?
I mean, it’s not even ironic. Stormy Daniels must be laughing her keister off.
I watched as this unfolded on Twitter on Saturday…the whole thing is surreal, but I was following it via a reporter from the UK whose dry British humor made it all feel Python-esque.
The entire event was utterly bizarre.
@CSK: It really is a hoot. And yet, my guffaws were cut short when I realized that there was a pro-Trump rally nearby, he’s going to continue to hold rallies, and that even after this incident, 70M people would still vote for him.
Go home, 2020. You’re drunk.
So…the Q folks think Trump is fighting back against a cabal of pedophiles, etc.., and the guy Giuliani brings to the Mic is a convicted Sex Offender. Uh…shouldn’t the Q folks be going after this guy right about now? If I were the dude I would be worried that a GOP that has embraced the Q’anon folks just set the stage for the world to know he is a sex offender and be sincerely nervous about possible attacks from Q wackadoodles.
In travel and aviation blogs you often see stories of people who wound up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, rather than Sydney, Australia (though I doubt there is a direct flight to the former), and other such mishaps.
One time I had a meeting scheduled with a government agency in Queretaro at a Holiday Inn on the highway that passes through the city. I arrived very early, and didn’t see our meeting listed. When I asked hotel staff, they told me no meeting room had been reserved. Then they asked me if we needed catering 🙂
They called the agency, and then quickly set up in an empty meeting room. Just in time, as other suppliers began to arrive around that time. It turned out some assistant had forgotten to book the meeting room.
So these things happen. But you’d think a high-profile campaign would handle such publicity stunts better. As is, more people are talking about the venue than the message.
As they rightly should, considering the veracity of the message..
@inhumans99:
I wonder how long QAnon will last, given that Trump doesn’t appear inclined to make any mass arrests of Hollywood and Deep State cannabalistic pedophiles.
Hmmmm…….
Yeah…I think of Q as a bit more harmful variant of Tea Party folks. The Tea Party conveniently had convictions and was passionate about reducing the budget while Obama was Pres, but Trump comes to town and their convictions fall apart faster than wet TP. It will be amazing how many in the GOP take to the floor of Congress on Jan 21 with impassioned speeches about how we have to get our budget under control.
That schtick is getting a bit worn out, even for the GOP but they will definitely become of a fan of Austerity policies come the end of Jan 2021.
5-Dimensional chess players, those Trump LLP & associates are…
and then there’s this –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAyh2xPrFvo&ab_channel=MichaelSpicer&fbclid=IwAR0HsQ4j35TNo9ao26dODyYisa3dBOeHvhX35_KIgLVUTwrYOSdE__x2hJQ
America’s mayor, folks, doing his best to wipe the Borat film out of everyone’s memory for a few days at least.
But this is Trump! Absent the incredible fortune in real estate that his grandfather and father left him, Trump would be the oldest used car salesman on a decrepit lot, talking the ear off the other salesmen about how he once sold Cadillacs to mobsters, and they all know he is full of it. He would go home every night to his monthly rate room and eat beans out of the can and drink cheap beer, having been told he was no longer welcome in every diner and tavern within walking distance because he fought with the waiters and customers.
People confuse him with someone having competence for two reasons: First, because he started out with the equivalent of more than a billion dollars in assets and a very competent employees who handled his father’s business. So it took a while before he completely collapsed. Second, because he played a billionaire on TV, and people get confused about stuff like that.
Trump “deals” have a loud and bragging beginning and a sound and fury ending but nothing in between. By himself he isn’t capable of negotiating a deal, or planning a golf tournament, or organizing a beauty pageant or even hosting a press conference. All his life he drove away every competent person caught up in his BS and when they were gone it became obvious that, stealing from Gertrude Stein, there is no there there.
Somewhere in this is a joke about fertilizer spreading, I just know it.
@MarkedMan: “Absent the incredible fortune in real estate that his grandfather and father left him, Trump would be the oldest used car salesman on a decrepit lot, talking the ear off the other salesmen about how he once sold Cadillacs to mobsters, and they all know he is full of it. ”
He’d be on his fifth name by now, with warrants on the other names, and some unpleasant people from Loan Collections looking for him.
@inhumans99:
Q is playing the long game according to this tweet that has been circulating in the fever swamps…
…Trump has to let this play out to catch the corrupt Dems in a sting.
Considering that Bossie has just come down with COVID the sound and fury might die down quicker than expected.
Looks to me that all the right guys are catching COVID here…Ben Carson, Bossie…who’s next?
@Kathy:
I fly into QuerĂ©taro when I visit SMA. I’ve stayed in that Holiday Inn, assuming you’re talking about the one in Centro Historico.
@EddieInCA:
No, one along the highway just within city limits.
I’ve gone to the area you refer, but not to any hotels there.
I will never stop finding this funny. Not ever. I’ve been cackling about it since Saturday!
This little company is now world-renowned! They’re selling merchandise off their website, and they’re getting so many orders, they can’t keep up.
I mean, I think the next X-Files convention should be held there.
Philadelphia, home to the Liberty Bell, the Constitution Center, the Betsy Ross House, and most importantly of all, FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPING!!!!
LAWN & ORDER!
I must say, when I moved back here in May, I never, ever expected all of the following to happen:
* Delaware is the de facto capital of the free world
* Philadelphia is the epicenter of the election
* The entire world knows Claymont, Delco, Gritty, and FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPING!
I grew up around here, and even I didn’t know about Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Is it possible to have a celebrity crush on a landscaping company? Because if it is, I have one!
@inhumans99:
“So…the Q folks think Trump is fighting back against a cabal of pedophiles, etc.., and the guy Giuliani brings to the Mic is a convicted Sex Offender. Uh…shouldn’t the Q folks be going after this guy right about now? If I were the dude I would be worried that a GOP that has embraced the Q’anon folks just set the stage for the world to know he is a sex offender and be sincerely nervous about possible attacks from Q wackadoodles.”
Q evidently gave up on bringing the baby eating cannibals to justice. Perhaps to not blow their cover, and pursue more serious crimes, like not supporting dear leader.
Make America Rake Again!!
@Nightcrawler:
I agree! I’ve laughed about it every time I remember!
A more fitting way to end this presidency is hard to imagine.
As regards historical momentousness, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Press Conference loses bigly to the Tennis Court Oath.
No no no, you’re all misunderstanding the ACTUAL Q bylaws: That “being offended by sex offenders” thing only applies to Democrats and celebrities. They’re perfectly willing to overlook Republicans that “partake”. They get that glazed-over look in their eyes when you point out Trump’s track record with raping minors and the things he said about his own daughter.
We need to keep commenting on this story so it stays towards the top of this blog…it is a great reminder that the Trump admin bungles up attempts to steal things like the election from Joe Biden and gives me a good laugh. This story is what will keep me sane and telling myself that James is right, things are not as bad as we feared.
We keep saying well, what if Trump and his cronies were more competent but well, they are not so I am going to stop acting like they are and calm down about things and let the process work itself out.
If Trump wants to continue to insist that 71 million voters equals 77 million (which would put him on top in the popular vote count) and 214 EC votes equals 280 (which would put him on top of Biden) that is his prerogative, but even common core math still gets you to the answer of 1+1 = 2, not 3, or 5, or 27…the answer is 2. It is just with Common core math you will be able to articulate how and why you get to 1+1=s 2 instead of just shrugging your shoulders and saying well, 1+1 =s 2, it just does.
If Trump wants to continue to live in his own alternate universe for the next 8-10 weeks that is fine with me. After all, if you actually read Barr’s statement that he is okay with investigating potential election fraud he really does add some serious qualifiers, like for him to go to bat defending Trump his campaign needs to come up with hard proof of systemic fraud that would have had Trump winning. He is not taking Trumps’ and some Senators’ words at face value that because they say there was systemic fraud than there was widespread fraud, he wants proof. The man does have some scruples.
I do love an opportunity to use the word scruples in a post and we can thank the great film Grosse Pointe Blank for my love of the word, when Cusack’s character is offered a chance to accept a contract to take down a Greenpeace boat he says no way!, I have scruples.