Finally, Friday and Forty-Five has Thirty-Four Felony Counts Reads!

“I’m going with this. Lock him up. Guilty 34 counts.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Donald stands in front of many flags, noticeably shaken and spouting the usual lies.  It’s the same old, same old from the same old, same old.  This old, tired man has a lot of old, tired excuses and blame-shifting. This is the most spaced-out presser I think I’ve ever seen.  He’s just rambling on. Maybe he’s just discovered he’s mortal and is in shock.  Who knows what goes on in that addled old mind of his?  However, it’s still a clarion call for the KKKult.

This is from Reuters. “Trump supporters call for riots and violent retribution after verdict.”  Isn’t that against the Law?  Lock them up with him!

Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution.

After Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, his supporters responded with dozens of violent online posts, according to a Reuters review of comments on three Trump-aligned websites: the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Patriots.Win and the Gateway Pundit.

Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection.
“Someone in NY with nothing to lose needs to take care of Merchan,” wrote one commentator on Patriots.Win. “Hopefully he gets met with illegals with a machete,” the post said in reference to illegal immigrants.

On Gateway Pundit, one poster suggested shooting liberals after the verdict. “Time to start capping some leftys,” said the post. “This cannot be fixed by voting.”

Some Trump supporters were considered unconsolable.  Poor, nasty, racist, bigoted, homophobic, women-hating deplorables!  The New York Times attempts to gauge America’s response to the verdict. “The Trump Verdict: Americans React.  Initial reactions nationwide to former President Donald J. Trump’s conviction on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.”  This was my favorite woman-on-the-street response.

Ashley Daniels, 38, Los Angeles

“My first initial thought was joy, because it’s been going on for so long, just waiting for some sort of justice,” she said.

“But I feel a little amazed, when I looked it up, that he actually can still run for president now that he’s been convicted for 34 felonies. Like you can get denied for regular-Joe jobs, but you can be president for 34 felonies. It’s kind of crazy. But I’m hoping we’re moving in a good direction.”

The Guardian also asked some folks on the street. “‘I’d enjoy seeing him go to prison’: voters react to guilty verdict in Trump trial. Some are ‘glad to see him held accountable’ while others call conviction a ‘travesty’ and believe it will embolden his base.”

Inside the Wisconsin state capitol on Thursday evening, Brian Schimming, the chair of the Wisconsin Republican party, decried Donald Trump’s conviction in blistering terms. The conviction was an embarrassment. The verdict, “rigged”. The legal system, akin to that of a “banana republic”.

On the sprawling lawn outside the state capitol building, in deep-blue Madison, Cheyenne Carter, a 25-year-old administrative assistant, reflected on the verdict more matter-of-factly.

“I’m glad to see him be held accountable in some criminal way,” said Carter. “I would actually enjoy seeing him go to prison, or see some type of actual prison time – unfortunately, I’m sure that won’t happen.”

Like many voters, Carter made up her mind about the former president long ago, and figures others have too.

The jury’s verdict – guilty of 34 felony charges in connection with his hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels – makes Trump the first US president, current or former, in history to be convicted in criminal court. It’s not clear that will change minds.

“I feel like people have made their opinion about him for years now, and it’s like, you can’t change it this far in,” said Carter.

Will Ford, an air traffic controller from Wisconsin, agreed. He hasn’t settled on Joe Biden and could see himself voting for a third-party candidate, but has never considered voting for Trump, whom he sees as a menace.

“He’s a different breed, a different kind of person,” said Ford. “If he gets elected, I think we’d be in trouble a little bit, because he’s for sure going straight after everybody who was against him.”

For Dave, a retiree from northern Wisconsin who preferred not to share his last name, the verdict proved what Trump has been claiming for months and what the Republican party establishment, evidenced in Schimming’s speech at the Capitol, appears to have settled on as a unifying message – that the cases against Trump are unfair and politically motivated.

“I think this will make him even greater – Trump will win in a landslide,” he said.

At the link, there’s another set of voter comments from the state of Georgia.  Both of these will be key states in November.  All I can continue to say is that I’ve never met a smart Trump voter. They’re either choking on racist bile, blissfully unaware of reality, or both. The big discussion last night after the verdict was how much Trump’s involvement with his defense tanked his chances of getting at least one holdout.  This is from Politico. “Trump Bungled the Trial. A conviction wasn’t inevitable.”  This analysis is provided by Ankush Khardori.

It may not have been the trial that the country deserves, but it’s the trial that we got.

On Thursday, Donald Trump became the first president in U.S. history to become a convicted felon thanks to a jury of 12 New Yorkers. The verdict was swift, coming after less than two days of deliberations in the hush money trial.

But a conviction was not inevitable. The legal issues were intricate and in some key respects novel, and some of them will credibly be at issue on appeal. The state’s evidence was voluminous but far from airtight, and there were weaknesses and gaps in the prosecution’s evidence as the case unfolded.

In fact, this was probably a winnable case — not in the form of an acquittal perhaps, but in the form of a hung jury that could have resulted by persuading one or more jurors that a case built around Michael Cohen — the former Trump lawyer/fixer turned convicted felon turned media personality — was simply not strong or reliable enough to warrant this watershed moment in American history. Trump also probably could have gotten off with convictions on misdemeanor counts of falsifying his company’s business records instead of felonies, but he never asked the judge to instruct the jurors on that point, perhaps fearing that the request might make him look weak — the worst offense of them all in his mind.

In life and in the law, hindsight is 20/20. In close political campaigns, analysts are often tempted to treat the eventual winner as the candidate that made the right decisions at the crucial points, and to treat the loser as having fumbled along. The same dynamic applies to legal proceedings too, so some caution is warranted. At some point, we may hear from some of the jurors themselves about what guided their decision, which would be a welcome addition to the historical record.

In the meantime, we are left to our own devices and to a tentative but unavoidable conclusion — that Trump and his lawyers bungled this trial.

They made a series of significant strategic and tactical errors before Cohen even took the stand that appeared likely to be the product of Trump — the client’s — decision-making. They foolishly claimed that the porn star Stormy Daniels had fabricated her story in the run-up to the 2016 election, then pilloried her ineffectively during cross-examination. They elevated peripheral witnesses (like Daniels’ lawyer) through drawn-out cross-examinations when they should have downplayed their actual relevance to the charges.

It was legal Trumpism — deny everything, attack indiscriminately.

I think also Trump and his lawyer/slaves underestimated how much they could undermine Cohen. Cohen and his lawyer made a long appearance on MSNBC.  The funniest part was Cohen’s characterization of Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, as SLOAT, which is an acronym for ‘Stupidest Lawyer Of All Time.’   Cohen argued that Blanche listened to Trump’s trial strategy and that, like everything Trump touches, it died.  The most behind-the-scenes lawyer who deserves kudos is Cohen’s lawyer, Danya Perry.  She revealed that Blanche was her paralegal when he 1st started working at the same office. When Cohen was describing his prep for testimony, it was obvious that Perry’s influence had helped him greatly.  She told him to lay off the social media, make the facts surrounding him a given, and move on.  You can watch the interview with Rachel and the rest of the MSNBC night team with Cohen and Perry at the link.  He admitted to his lies and errors and just moved on. She argued it was part of why the jury wound up trusting him.

Another item discussed last night was the law in Florida that stops convicted felons from voting.  Today, in the Miami Herald, a detail in the law shows that Trump may still vote in the November election. “Trump was found guilty of crimes in New York. Can he still vote in Florida?”

Former President Donald Trump may officially be a convicted felon, but he’ll still likely be able to vote for himself in Florida this November. While Florida law bars people convicted of most felonies from voting until they’ve fulfilled all terms of their sentence, Trump, a lifelong New Yorker who changed his residency to Florida in 2019, was convicted Thursday in his former home state.

The Florida Secretary of State’s website states that a “felony conviction in another state makes a person ineligible to vote in Florida only if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the state where the person was convicted.” Under New York state law, even convicted felons are allowed to register to vote, so long as they’re not currently in prison.

For now, it’s unclear what kind of punishment Trump could receive. His sentencing hearing is currently scheduled for July 11. New York state law calls for a maximum four-year prison sentence for each of the 34 counts of falsifying business records that Trump was found guilty of on Thursday.

Trump could avoid prison time altogether, according to The New York Times, if the judge overseeing the case imposes a sentence of probation. Trump has also promised to appeal his conviction, which would have an effect on his voting status.

Trump’s sentencing hearing will occur on July 11.  Catherine Christian, Former Asst. The District Attorney for the Manhattan DA also had a lot of good information on what’s to follow for both the sentencing hearing and the appeal.  The interesting thing I learned was that Trump does not have to attend the Appeal Court proceedings.  Her interview with Rachel is at the link.

There are a lot of big questions left. I’m sure we can hear and read a lot of speculation. At this point, only Judge Marchan holds the keys to many of them. I hope his sheriff’s detail is large and well-armed. In these six convening weeks, we’ll see if Trump can really call out the crazies.  We’ll also be watching the Biden campaign’s response.  They seem to be determining what will work best.  Are there enough disaffected Republicans to attempt some outreach efforts?  I’m not sure anyone can do anything, but I guess right now.  I do feel we will see some violence from those heavily armed white lone wolves out there.  It’s never good when you’re a fanatic–religious or otherwise–and you go on an armed crusade.  We shall see.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?