“The trump criminal trial has so much drama.” John Buss @repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Last night was ladies’ night in the Congressional House Oversight Committee meeting. And oh, what a night! The sidewalk display outside the Trump Hush Money Trial wasn’t much better. And then there was the Kansas City Ball Kicker who gave a commencement speech at a small Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. It’s been a sad week for women in leadership positions or those who strive for leadership positions. It’s been a week of sexism and misogyny unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
I’m going to start with the Ball Kicker. This analysis is from Vox, written by Li Zhou. “The controversy over Harrison Butker’s misogynistic commencement speech, explained. Butker’s address was a textbook case of conservative sexism and homophobia.”
NFL kicker Harrison Butker is facing widespread backlash after giving a college commencement speech that casually dabbled in misogyny and homophobia.
Butker, who has won three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs in recent years, delivered the address at Benedictine College, a private Catholic institution in Kansas, on May 11. In it, he criticizes everything from women prioritizing professional careers to Pride Month to abortion access.
An outspoken conservative who is close with leading right-wing figures including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Butker’s speech closely echoed Republican rhetoric and fixated on issues that have been popular fodder for conservatives as they try to mobilize their voters ahead of the 2024 election.
“I think it is you, the women who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker said in his speech. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
The Chiefs have not commented on Butker’s remarks and the NFL league office distanced itself from them. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People.
Butker’s speech advances the same agenda that the GOP has been pushing not only in its rhetoric but through policy. At least 21 Republican-led state legislatures have approved laws that ban or restrict abortion access and at least 20 have approved bills that curb access to gender-affirming care for minors. Butker’s remarks — which emphasized people “staying in [their] lane” — are the latest attempt to weaponize religion to achieve the same goals.
Butker’s speech is being characterized by the usual suspects as just “expressing unpopular opinions.” It’s more than that.
Below are some of the lowlights:
On women’s careers: One of the sections getting the most attention is Butker’s comments about the importance of women’s roles in the home. Singling out the women in the audience, he argued that they’re likely more eager to become wives and mothers than to have successful careers.
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” he said.
In addition to speaking on women’s behalf, Butker also reduced the primary goal of their lives to one biological function. Being a homemaker is an important role that should be celebrated, but it’s far from the only one a woman can choose — a key reason his remarks spurred such backlash. Butker also described women’s roles very differently than he described men’s: While he touted the virtues of being a present father, he did not say that being a dad was likely the primary goal of a man’s life.
In recent days, a parade of Republicans have shown up at the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump faces criminal charges related to the hush-money scheme he concocted to deceive American voters during the 2016 election. The goal of those MAGA allies is simple: to make it unimpeachably clear that their primary fealty is to Donald Trump over the rule of law.
Unfortunately, some of media coverage has obscured these fundamentals. Some accounts describe these Republicans as “currying favor” with Trump or showing “loyalty” to him, as if they are just demonstrating personal support for him at a trying moment. Others have noted that some making this pilgrimage—none more odiously than Ohio Senator J.D. Vance—are really vying to be his running mate, which might be true but reduces all this to a form of political jockeying that seems fairly conventional.
If we are going to treat this as a story about loyalty signaling, let’s frame the question this way: Loyalty to what, exactly? Not just loyalty to Trump. This episode—and others like it, such as the stampede of Republicans backing Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the 2024 election results—is better seen as a statement of ultimate fealty to Trump over and above our institutions, as a declaration that he is paramount and they are thoroughly dispensable.
“This trial is a scam and a sham, and it shouldn’t happen,” Trump raged on Thursday at the court, with Representative Matt Gaetz and other Republicans standing behind him. Gaetz proudly posted a picture of himself “standing back and standing by” for Trump at the courthouse, deliberately echoing the language Trump used about his paramilitary goons in the first 2020 debate.
This comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson descended on the courthouse this week and attacked presiding Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, who fundraised for Democrats, blasting the proceedings as a “sham.” Vance and Florida Senator Rick Scott similarly attacked Merchan’s daughter. Many Republicans blasted the credibility of Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer and chief prosecution witness. Still others slammed the lead prosecutor, based on an absurd, convoluted theory about his previous work at the Justice Department, as a tool of President Biden.
If Republicans were merely criticizing the prosecution on the facts and the law in substantive terms, it would be one thing. But here they are attacking the judge, his family, the witnesses, and the line prosecutors as actors in a fundamentally illegitimate proceeding.
Those are things the gag order on Trump prohibits him from doing, which has some commentators asking whether he is surreptitiously inducing his boosters to carry out those attacks to circumvent it. There is some evidence of this, but as Brian Beutler writes, that question misses the point: Either way, the surrogates wouldn’t be doing any of it if Trump didn’t want them to, and they are echoing Trump’s own precise language and claims.
To grasp the real force of this, it’s worth recalling the reason we don’t want proceedings like these subjected to demonization campaigns in the first place: It threatens to sabotage public confidence in the justice system’s integrity and makes it harder for good-faith actors to play their roles in it without fear or favor. And so, the whole point of these GOP depravities is to dramatize, in the form of spectacle, that their fealty is to Trump over and above those rules and norms, the ones that make the system work at the most fundamental level.
Rep. Lauren Boebert made headlines with her show of support at former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Thursday, but has been conspicuously absent for her own son’s court appearances, according to multiple reports.
The Colorado congresswoman joined a gaggle of Freedom Caucus loyalists at the Manhattan criminal court on Thursday, writing on X: “I’ll never stop standing up for President Trump, even if I’m the last one standing.”
Speaking at a makeshift press conference outside the court, Boebert was heckled with chants of “Beetlejuice” — a reference to when she was thrown out of a Denver theater showing the film after vaping and apparently groping a male companion.
While Trump is facing criminal charges of falsifying business records in relation to a hush-money scheme to silence porn actor Stormy Daniels, Boebert’s 19-year-old son Tyler has also had court dates.
Tyler Boebert was arrested in February on multiple felony charges including the criminal possession of identity documents, criminal trespass, and possession of a financial device.
He’s had two court hearings to date — one on April 11 and another on May 9.
During the April hearing, Boebert was in Congress voting against the passage of the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act, records show.
Trump took advantage of the photo op and whining in court by appearing at Barron’s graduation today. He’s headed off for a fundraiser tonight in the Twin Cities. He’s probably airborne, as I write. Another MAGA governor is getting slammed for being more interested in appearances than Governing. They’re the most emotionally abusive group of misfits I’ve ever seen or read about. “‘A Governor Who Doesn’t Seem to Have Much Interest in Governing Arkansas.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ increasing number of critics think she’s too worried about her national profile.” This is in Politicoand reported by Dana Liebelson. If she was that worried about her profile, you would think she’d stop wearing outfits suggesting she’s about to board a Prarie Schooner to Oregon. Still, I can’t see this kind of coverage of Jeff Landry, our governor, down here in Lousyana.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders assumed a podium on a recent spring morning in Arkansas, her familiar voice instantly evoking her pugnacious press conferences under Donald Trump. That day, there were no reporters to spar with, nor culture wars to wage, only a few dozen Arkansans who’d come to applaud millions in ongoing state grants for playgrounds and parks. “When my kids were younger, we could plan a huge trip just to find out that our kids would prefer to actually play on a jungle gym or a swing set,” she said. The 41-year-old governor wore an above-the-knee metallic skirt and pumps, a millennial-friendly outfit that matched her refreshed brand as the youngest governor in the country. She reminisced about her husband, Bryan, planning outdoor adventures with their three children, “some of which I am glad that I went on.” The crowd, which included Bryan, laughed.
Sanders was a long way from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2018, when she sat silently, a rictus fixed on her face, as comedienne Michelle Wolf joked about her burning facts and using the ash “to create a perfect smoky eye.” The former White House press secretary made her name defending Trump’s version of reality, while whittling down the actual press briefing. To her supporters, she played the outsider in Washington who couldn’t be corrupted by the D.C. establishment.
Now that she’s returned home, they say she still puts Arkansas first. In a close-knit state where some of Sanders’ colleagues have known her since college or younger, they insist her time with Trump didn’t fundamentally change her. Washington was one of her adventures, some of which she’s glad she went on. And many people in Arkansas love her for the same reason her national audience does: “She’s a fighter, an amazing communicator, and people connect to her,” Chris Caldwell, her 2022 campaign manager, told me.
But she has brought her experience in Trump’s Washington back with her. She shows little trust in the media. She cruises between events in a black SUV with tinted windows, accompanied by a state police detail in suits and a comms director who worked for Trump and his 2020 presidential campaign. At open-press events, she takes so few questions, Arkansas reporters are fatalistic about the idea of asking many. Instead, as befits a national figure with national ambitions — she’s shown up on lists as a possible running mate for Trump — she reaches her audience on her terms, including on Fox News, or Instagram and Elon Musk’s X, where she has over 2.3 million collective followers. At times, she seems to govern for the latter. Arkansas may not share a border with Mexico, but she has traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, and talked about the border crisis on Fox & Friends. And sent down the Arkansas National Guard. Arkansas has long allowed gender-neutral IDs, of which there are a few hundred issued, but she justified banning them in the state, using the same playbook from the Republican war on trans rights.
Criticism of a member’s “fake eyelashes” and another’s intelligence. A question about discussing a member’s “bleach blond, bad-built butch body.”
A House Oversight Committee meeting Thursday night devolved into chaos amid personal attacks and partisan bickering in a rare evening session that was supposed to center on a resolution recommending Attorney General Merrick Garland be held in contempt of Congress.
The already tense hearing was derailed when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., responded to a question from Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, by saying, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
Democrats, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, immediately moved to strike Greene’s words from the record and make her apologize to Crockett.
“That is absolutely unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez said over cross talk. “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?”
Greene taunted Ocasio-Cortez, asking, “Are your feelings hurt?”
“Oh, girl? Baby girl,” Ocasio-Cortez shot back. “Don’t even play.”
Greene attacked a second member just minutes after she criticized Crockett, asserting that Ocasio-Cortez did not have “enough intelligence” for a debate.
Greene had asked Ocasio-Cortez, “Why don’t you debate me?”
Ocasio-Cortez responded that she thought “it’s pretty self-evident.”
“You don’t have enough intelligence,” Greene said as members of Congress audibly groaned at her attack.
Greene agreed to strike her comments toward Crockett but vehemently refused to apologize for the evening’s attacks, declaring, “You will never get an apology out of me.”
Green asked if any member of the Democrat party was employing Judge Marchand’s daughter, which had nothing to do with the committee topic, which was supposed to be about AG Merrick Garland.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on all of this because I’m “hopping mad,” as my mother would say. It seemed to be an equal opportunity week to discuss why women should return to the kitchen and nursery. Sometimes, I’d like to be wherever David and Warren are, packing my guitars and piano with me and ignoring this world for a while.
I have one thing to bring to your attention. This is from the Texas Monthly. “Why Did Greg Abbott Pardon a Racist Murderer? The governor didn’t offer much of a rationale in granting clemency to Daniel Perry, who killed a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020, but apparently the enemy of his enemy is his friend.” It was written by Christopher Hooks. May all the wisdom beings protect every living thing and person in a red state.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The sun produced its biggest flare in nearly two decades Tuesday, just days after severe solar storms pummeled Earth and created dazzling northern lights in unaccustomed places.
“Not done yet!” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in an update.
It’s the biggest flare of this 11-year solar cycle, which is approaching its peak, according to NOAA. The good news is that Earth should be out of the line of fire this time because the flare erupted on a part of the sun rotating away from Earth.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the bright flash of the X-ray flare. It was the strongest since 2005, rated on the scale for these flares as X8.7.
Bryan Brasher at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado said it may turn out to have been even stronger when scientists gather data from other sources.
It follows nearly a week of flares and mass ejections of coronal plasma that threatened to disrupt power and communications on Earth and in orbit. An ejection associated with Tuesday’s flare appeared to have been directed away from our planet, although analysis is ongoing, Brasher noted.
I’m glad it’s not going to affect us, because last time my cell phone malfunctioned and I spent hours texting with tech support trying to get it working again.
Trump Biden debate in 2020
The big news this morning is that President Biden challenged Trump to two debates and Trump accepted. The first debate is now scheduled for June 27. The second one is planned for some time in September, if Trump doesn’t chicken out. The debates will not be under the control of the debate commission, and Biden’s preference is for no live audience.
President Biden and former president Donald Trump agreed Wednesday to a June 27 debate on CNN, hours after Biden announced he would bypass the decades-old tradition of three fall meetings organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
After Biden publicly embraced a CNN proposal in a social media post, a Trump adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the presumptive Republican nominee would accept that event. CNN also announced plans for the event.
“I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump wrote earlier Wednesday on Truth Social. “I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds.”
“Just tell me when, I’ll be there,” he continued, before referencing a tag line from professional boxing. “’Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”
The publicagreement follows private back-channel discussions about possible meetings. The officials with the Biden and Trump campaigns have had informal conversations on debates in recent weeks, focused on meetings that would not involve the commission, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private events.
The Biden proposal, outlined in a video message and letter to the commission, called for direct negotiations between the Trump and Biden campaigns over the rules, moderators and network hosts for the one-on-one encounters. He proposed a separate vice-presidential debate in July, after the Republican nominating convention and before the Democratic nominating convention.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he is acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice,” Biden said in the video released Wednesday that referenced the weekly break in Trump’s New York criminal trial. “So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.” [….]
On the proposed ground rules:
Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon cited the commission’s proposed schedule and past struggles to keep candidates from violating the debate rules in the letter explaining the decision.
Trump and Biden in 2020
“The Commission’s model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense simply isn’t necessary or conducive to good debates,” she wrote. “The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering.” [….]
The Biden proposal will be the subject of extensive negotiations between the two camps over the coming weeks, with Biden advisers now expecting proposals to come in from networks. Biden’s team has requested that only broadcast networks that hosted Republican primary debates in 2016 and Democratic primary debates in 2020 be eligible to host the first debate. Only four networks — CNN, ABC News, Telemundo and CBS News — hosted debates for both parties during those cycles.
Biden proposed that the moderator should be selected by the broadcast host from its “regular personnel,” with firm time limits for answers, equal speaking time, alternative turns to speak and microphones that are active only during each candidate’s turn. The first debate would take place after the June 15 conclusion of the Group of Seven summit in Italy and the conclusion of Trump’s criminal trial in New York. The September debate would take place before the start of early voting.
Yesterday, Michael Cohen finished his direct testimony in the hush money case, and the defense began cross examining him.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s criminal trial finally progressed Tuesday to a confrontation that has been brewing for weeks: the face-off between the former president’s defense team and his former fixer, Michael Cohen.
But after a few initial crackles, it lacked the pop that many had expected.
Todd Blanche with Trump in court
Cohen is the prosecution’s star witness, and during a day-and-a-half of direct examination, he provided critical details about Trump’s knowledge of the cover-up at the heart of the case. So when Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, stood up after lunch to begin cross-examining him, everyone was waiting to see the Trump team’s strategy for depicting Cohen as a liar with a vendetta.
Blanche’s first question — in which he quoted an off-color insult from Cohen — got the courtroom’s attention. But over several hours, Cohen largely maintained his cool while Blanche attempted to provoke him. And in questions ranging from Cohen’s book profits to what Cohen said during the Robert Mueller investigation, it wasn’t clear if Blanche managed to dent Cohen’s credibility in the hush money case.
Even Trump himself appeared to doze off while his own lawyer was questioning his nemesis.
The cross-examination will continue Thursday (after a scheduled day off on Wednesday), but for now, Cohen seems mostly unscathed.
More on Blanche’s questioning of Cohen:
He began by making it personal: “On April 23, you went on TikTok and called me a ‘crying little shit,’ didn’t you?” Blanche asked Cohen, raising his voice to deliver “shit.”
Prosecutors objected — but not before Cohen blurted out: “That sounds like something I would say.”
Blanche wasn’t done. Moments later, he confronted Cohen with more of his expletive-laden TikTok commentary, including calling Trump a “dictator douchebag” and saying Trump leaves the courtroom to go to “right into that little cage, which is where he belongs, in a fucking cage, like an animal.”
“I recall saying that,” Cohen replied.
But if Blanche’s strategy was to rankle Cohen into displaying some of the ire and petulance he has broadcast on social media and on his podcast, it didn’t work. Cohen maintained a largely placid demeanor, calling Blanche “sir,” and declining to offer colorful descriptions of the events Blanche questioned him about.
When Blanche tried to depict Cohen as a blabbermouth who has frustrated the Manhattan district attorney’s office by repeatedly going on TV to talk about the case against Trump, Cohen said he didn’t recall many requests by prosecutors to keep quiet and insisted they had only occasionally asked him, “please don’t talk about the case.”
“That’s it? They just call you and say that?” Blanche said incredulously.
“Actually, they call my attorney,” Cohen replied.
Trump has been inviting MAGA politicians like Tommy Tuberville and JD Vance to accompany him to court this week. Then they hold press conferences outside the courthouse and attack the judge and prosecution. Yesterday, Trump brought the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. This man is second in line for the presidency and he’s being led around by nose by Trump. How humiliating.
The US House was in session on Tuesday with vital business to complete but its speaker, Mike Johnson, was 200 miles north, attending another day in the criminal trial of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee charged over hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.
“President Trump is innocent of these charges,” Johnson said outside court in Manhattan, where Trump faces the first 34 of 88 criminal counts….
Mike Johnson holding forth outside the courthouse in Manhattan
Trump has used his trial as a loyalty test for supporters and vice-presidential hopefuls, both at the courthouse and on social media and TV. On Tuesday, Johnson was joined by the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, the Florida representatives Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination.
Before proceedings began, as Johnson and other supporters stood behind him, Trump spoke to reporters.
“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully,” he said. “They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen.”
Regarding such surrogates’ ability to comment on the trial unencumbered by a gag order over which Trump has been fined and threatened with incarceration, Trump told reporters: “You ask me questions that I’m not allowed to answer.” [….]
One of Johnson’s former Republican colleagues, the anti-Trump conservative Liz Cheney, jibed: “Have to admit I’m surprised that Speaker Johnson wants to be in the ‘I cheated on my wife with a porn star’ club. I guess he’s not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all.” [….]
Back on Capitol Hill, the House was due to consider final passage of the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act. House Democrats were also set to face a series of messaging bills, proposed legislation designed not to pass but to ensnare the other party in difficult political choices.
Mr Johnson said he was speaking out in defence of his “friend,” the former president, and decried the “sham” trial.
“I wanted to be here myself, to call out what is a travesty of justice,” Mr Johnson told reporters. “President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him.” [….]
Mr Johnson criticized the charge that Mr Trump falsified his business records.
“I think everybody knows he is not the bookkeeper for his company,” he said. “President Trump is innocent of these charges, and again, anyone with common sense can understand what is happening here.”
Mr Johnson is just the latest Republican-elected official to head to New York to show their support for the former president. Senators Rick Scott of Florida, JD Vance of Ohio and Senator Tommy Tuberville are among the many who have made the pilgrimage to the Manhattan courthouse.
The Democratic National Committee mocked the showing.
“Trump’s pathetic band of MAGA extremists seemingly have nothing better to do than echo Trump’s lies and nod approvingly in the background – because they certainly aren’t doing their day jobs of serving their constituents or running a functional political operation,” spokesman Alex Floyd said. “If deploying this motley crew of cranks and conspiracy theorists was the Trump campaign’s ham-handed attempt to divert attention from their candidate’s disappearance from the campaign trail, they’re in for a stormy six months ahead.”
In recent days, several high-profile Republican political figures have traveled to the Manhattan Criminal Court, where Donald Trump is on trial. Outside the courthouse, they addressed the media and attacked key witnesses, the jury, and even the judge’s daughter.
The comments by Trump’s Republican allies are nearly identical to attacks that Trump has made previously in interviews and social media posts. But Judge Juan Merchan has ruled that, in so doing, Trump violated the gag order he imposed to preserve the integrity of the trial. Merchan has already fined Trump for violating the gag order 10times and has warned that future violations could result in incarceration.
Tommy Tuberville holds forth in Manhattan
Merchan’s order prohibits Trump from “directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses.” The order also prohibits Trump from directing others to attack the jury, the court staff, or family members.
Asked on Tuesday if he directed the Republicans to speak about the trial on his behalf, Trump described them as his “surrogates” and praised them for “speaking very beautifully.” Trump has also entered the courthouse flanked by his surrogates, effectively giving them his imprimatur. If Trump directed his surrogates to speak, their comments could constitute criminal contempt of the gag order by Trump….
On Monday, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) addressed the media in front of the courthouse. On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R), Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL), former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (R), and Congressman Cory Mills (R-FL) did the same. Tuesday’s group, in an apparent show of solidarity, wore Trump’s signature blue suit and red tie.
Many of Trump’s surrogates appear to be speaking from a common script.
Read more at the link above. I’m not sure the judge can do anything about this. Trump is slime.
On a recent Tuesday morning, a visibly frustrated Donald Trump sat through a tense hearing in the first-ever criminal trial of a former American president. During a break, he let rip on his social media platform.
New York Justice Juan Merchan, Trump declared on Truth Social, is a “highly conflicted” overseer of a “kangaroo court.” Trump supporters swiftly replied to his post with a blitz of attacks on Merchan. The comments soon turned ugly. Some called for Merchan and other judges hearing cases against Trump to be killed.
“Treason is a hangable offense,” one wrote.
“They should all be executed,” added another.
The April 23 post by Trump and the menacing responses from his followers illustrate the incendiary impact of his angry and incessant broadsides against the judges handling the criminal and civil suits against him. As his presidential campaign intensifies, Trump has baselessly cast the judges and prosecutors in his trials as corrupt puppets of the Biden administration, bent on torpedoing his White House bid.
The rhetoric is inspiring widespread calls for violence. In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Those posts were part of a larger pool of hundreds identified by Reuters that used hostile, menacing and, in some cases, racist or sexualized language to attack the judges, but stopped short of explicitly calling for violence against them.
Experts on extremism say the constant repetition of threatening or menacing language can normalize the idea of violence – and increase the risk of someone carrying it out. Mitch Silber, a former New York City Police Department director of intelligence analysis, compared the Trump supporters now calling for violence against judges to the U.S. Capitol rioters who believed they were following Trump’s “marching orders” on Jan. 6, 2021.
“This is just the 2023-2024 iteration of that phenomenon,” Silber said. “Articulating these ideas is the first step along the pathway of mobilizing to violence.”
Stormy Daniels leaving the Trump trial wearing bulletproof vest
Attorney Clark Brewster appeared on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” on Monday, where he revealed how the adult film star wore a bulletproof vest underneath her clothes “every day” until she got to the Manhattan courthouse where the trial is taking place.
“She was concerned about the security coming into New York,” Brewster told host Anderson Cooper and the show’s panelists.
Offering some insight into Daniels’ headspace during the trial, Brewster said, “I can tell you that before she came on Sunday, I mean, she cried herself to sleep.”
“She was paralyzed with fear, not of taking the stand or telling her story, but what some nut might do to her,” he continued. “And I’m genuinely concerned about it as well.”
No matter what happens with Donald Trump’s other criminal cases, we’ll always have New York, where he’s been walloped with two sets of civil penalties and is currently sleeping through his hush-money/election interference criminal trial.
Unfortunately, despite four indictments, it looks like New York is the only trial that will take place before the 2024 election. With more than a little help from his friends, Trump’s delay tactics have been remarkably successful, and he probably won’t see the inside of another criminal courtroom any time soon.
Last week, Trump appointee Judge Aileen Cannon issued a bizarre order that indefinitely delayed Trump’s trial for his mishandling of classified national security documents. It’s the culmination of months of foot-dragging on Cannon’s part, and it’s one that legal experts agree looks equal parts deliberate and incompetent.
Cannon’s May 7 order set 14 pretrial deadlines, vacated the May 20, 2024, trial date that had been tentatively set, and just didn’t bother to set a new one. Her reasoning? Setting a trial date would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA [Classified Information Procedures Act] issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury.”
That sounds plausible until you remember that Cannon herself is solely responsible for delays in addressing pretrial issues. It’s the judicial equivalent of running around in a hot dog costume declaring that “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this.” Her behavior is so obviously favorable to the former president that one Republican close to Trump told Rolling Stone Cannon is his “favorite member of the Trump campaign,” while another Trump adviser called her “a godsend.”
On the January 6th case:
In addition to Cannon, Trump is getting help from the US Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his absurd immunity claim in the January 6 election interference case — one that Trump’s own lawyer admitted would allow a president to order assassinations of political opponents.
In December 2023, special prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to take the question on an expedited basis but they declined. This meant that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals had to hear the appeal first.
The DC Circuit ruled against Trump on February 6, 2024, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on February 22. Apparently, the Supreme Court didn’t see the issue as particularly pressing and set oral arguments for April 25. During oral arguments, the Court’s conservative wing signaled they didn’t necessarily buy the entirety of Trump’s immunity argument but, as Liz Dye wrote, they “seemed to think the question of whether the president has to obey the laws of this land is a major head scratcher.”
The Georgia case is also “on hold indefinitely”:
The calendar also doesn’t favor the prosecution in the Georgia case, where Trump is charged with racketeering, false statements, forgery, witness tampering, and election fraud. However, where the classified documents and January 6 cases have dragged on with the assistance of Trump appointees, the roadblocks in the Georgia case are mainly the fault of the prosecutor, Fani Willis.
Willis hired her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, as a special prosecutor on the case, and when one of Trump’s co-defendants found out, he moved to dismiss the indictment and disqualify Willis. After a hearing in February, the presiding judge ruled the following month that Willis would not be disqualified. But Trump and eight of his co-defendants asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to allow them to appeal the decision, and last week, the appellate court agreed to hear the case.
No dates for briefing or oral argument have been set. The appellate court has roughly six months to hear and decide the case, which means a decision could come as late as November. Also, the trial court judge will probably refrain from setting a trial date until this is decided.
Unless the Georgia appellate courts move with unusual swiftness, Willis’s misstep here handed Trump the considerable gift of delaying the trial past the election.
At least it does appear that we’ll get a verdict in the New York case, but all this is very dispiriting.
That’s all I have for you today. I hope you find something of interest here.
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Michael Cohen testified Monday that Donald Trump warned him that “just be prepared, there’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” once Trump announced that he was running for president.
Cohen also testified about secretly recording Trump during a meeting about reimbursing the publisher of The National Enquirer for making a $150,000 hush money payment to a Playboy model to buy her silence about an alleged affair with Trump.
Cohen’s revelations came on his first day of testimony at Trump’s New York criminal hush money trial, where the former lawyer and fixer detailed efforts to protect Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 from being harmed by salacious disclosures.
Once slavishly devoted to Trump, Cohen is now his avowed enemy and could be the key witness against him in the case in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The 57-year-old is set to tell jurors about how he paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election, in exchange for her silence about a one-night stand she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump’s reimbursement of Cohen for that payoff while he was serving in the White House is the basis for the Manhattan District Attorney’s case against the ex-president.
The Trump Organization reported the Daniels-related reimbursements to Cohen as legal expenses. But District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that this constituted a crime — falsification of business records — committed by Trump to hide the fact that the hush money had protected his then-wobbling presidential candidate at a key moment.
Cohen will probably continue to behave, but his outside social media, much like his former boss’s, is a challenging problem for the court. This is from the Washington Post‘s Blair Guild. “The weird world of Michael Cohen’s live TikTok streaming. The former Trump fixer, now a critic, is expected to take the stand this week in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial. Meanwhile, he is live wearing cowboy hat filters, receiving calls from Rosie O’Donnell and sharing his feelings on TikTok.”
The Trump fixer turned critic riffs on whatever he wants: his political beliefs, books he’s recently read and the New York Rangers have all come up. But notably, Cohen, a disbarred lawyer, occasionally veers into rants about Trump.
Cohen suspects Trump’s legal team is tuning in to his live streams.
Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche last week urged the judge in the case to prohibit Cohen from talking about Trump outside of court, saying it was unfair because Trump cannot respond to the attacks.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan did not issue a formal order, but he instructed prosecutors “to communicate to Mr. Cohen that the judge is asking him to refrain from making any more statements about this case.”
Prosecutors said they have told Cohen and other witnesses to refrain from speaking about Trump — but they conceded that they have no real power to make them stop.
The live streams typically attract a few thousand viewers, wide-ranging in their opinions about Cohen. The comments section is a mixed bag of people attacking Cohen with clown-face emojis and supporters defending his personal growth out of Trump’s sphere.
There are examples if you happen to be interested. I’ve lived long enough to be tired of white men and their ever-lasting gobstopper whinging. Cohen is not a victim. He is one in a long line of enablers. His life would be better served if he engaged in behavior that wasn’t quite so self-serving.
I want to take some time again to show you the impact of the MAGA cult on those of us unfortunate enough to have MAGA legislators and governors. They’re really coming from women here in Louisiana. They want complete control over us. This is what happens when any person with a brain sits out an election.
Here are some really appalling policies put into place to punish women for being women. We are chattel here. This is from the AP. “Louisiana lawmakers reject adding exceptions of rape and incest to abortion ban.” I’m pretty sure the woman who is now our state AG will not take these laws to the Supreme Court. Instead, she will fight the groups that do.
Despite pleas from Democrats and gut-wrenching testimony from doctors and rape survivors, a GOP-controlled legislative committee rejected a bill Tuesday that would have added cases of rape and incest as exceptions to Louisiana’s abortion ban.
In the reliably red state, which is firmly ensconced in the Bible Belt and where even some Democrats oppose abortions, adding exceptions to Louisiana’s strict law has been an ongoing battle for advocates — with a similar measure failing last year. Currently, of the 14 states with abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, six have exceptions in cases of rape and five have exceptions for incest.
“I will beg (committee) members to come to common sense,” Democratic state Rep. Alonzo Knox said to fellow lawmakers ahead of the vote, urging them to give approval to the exceptions. “I’m begging now.”
Lawmakers voted against the bill along party lines, with the measure failing 4-7.
A nearly identical bill met the same fate last year, effectively dying in the same committee. In the hopes of advancing the legislation out of committee and to the House floor for full debate, bill sponsor Democratic state Rep. Delisha Boyd added an amendment to the measure so that the exceptions would only apply to those who are younger than 17. However, the change was still not enough to sway opponents.
Louisiana couldbecome the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice.
Legislators in Baton Rouge added the provision as a last-minute amendment to a Senate bill that would criminalize an abortion if someone gives a pregnant woman the pills without her consent, a scenario of “coerced criminal abortion” that nearly occurred with one senator’s sister.
A pregnant woman obtaining the two drugs “for her own consumption” would not be at risk of prosecution. But, with the exception of a health-care practitioner, a person helping her get the pills would be.
The amendment would list mifepristone and misoprostol under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act, which regulates depressants, opioids and other sometimes highly addictive drugs. It elicited a strong reaction from more than 240 Louisiana doctors, who called it “not scientifically based.”
“Adding a safe, medically indicated drug for miscarriage management … creates the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation,” they wrote in a letter sent last week to the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Thomas Pressly. They noted misoprostol’s other critical uses, including to prevent gastrointestinal ulcers and to aid in labor and delivery.
“Given its historically poor maternal health outcomes, Louisiana should prioritize safe and evidence-based care for pregnant women,” they urged.
The amendment, written with guidance from Louisiana Right to Life, was added after the Senate unanimously passed S.B. 276 in mid-April. The measure is awaiting a final vote in the House before the session ends June 3, with little opposition expected.
“As Senator Pressly has stated, the medical community regularly uses controlled substances in a myriad of medical situations, including emergencies,” said Sarah Zagorski, communications director for the antiabortion organization. “The use of these drugs for legitimate health care needs will still be available, just like all other controlled substances are still available for legitimate uses.”
It’s been apparent for months that the May 20 trial date in this case wasn’t going to be the actual start of trial, as the Judge let critical motions stack up and refused to rule. This week, she announced that the trial date was off, and then she refused to set a new one. Special Counsel Jack Smith had asked for a July trial date, but Judge Cannon said it would be “imprudent and inconsistent” with her duty to “fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions … [and] … critical CIPA issues … necessary to present this case to a jury.”
This is the language from Judge Cannon’s order where she vacates the trial date and says she’ll set a new one…some day after she decides all of the pending motions.
This case could and should have been ready for trial in December or January if she had been working on the motions and realistic deadlines all along.
Judge Cannon’s action here bears a striking similarity to what Trump asked her to do back in July of 2023, when he and co-defendant Walt Nauta filed a joint motion asking her to “postpone initial consideration of any rescheduled trial date until after substantive motions have been presented and adjudicated.” She didn’t then; she scheduled the May trial date. But now, she has given Trump what he wanted all along, and it’s contrary to what the law directs judges to do.
The Speedy Trial Act provides that, “In any case involving a defendant charged with an offense, the appropriate judicial officer, at the earliest practicable time, shall, after consultation with the counsel for the defendant and the attorney for the Government, set the case for trial on a day certain, or list it for trial on a weekly or other short-term trial calendar at a place within the judicial district, so as to assure a speedy trial.” Refusing to set a trial date is not what the rules authorize federal judges to do; in fact, the rules direct judges to set a trial date at the beginning of the case, before all of the motions are even filed. Here, we have a Judge who won’t set a trial date because of eight motions that are still pending on her docket because she has refrained from deciding them.
If one of us has our civil rights denied, we all face the same fate. If the Justice system puts any person or company above the law, there is no such thing as true Justice in this country.
This is from Chris Geidner, writing at Law Dork. “Justice Thomas has used this “hideous place” to amass the power he now exploits. Thomas’s attack on Washington comes as he will, yet again, issue rulings that set the national rules for the legal questions before the justices.”
It is in this context that one must regard Justice Clarence Thomas’s latest attack on the city that has provided him with a federal government job since the late 1970s.
“I think what you are going to find and especially in Washington, people pride themselves on being awful. It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas told the audience at the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Conference, per the Associated Press, on Friday.
It is, however, a “hideous place” that Thomas has nonetheless used to obtain increasing positions of power over the decades. Ever since he reached his perch on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, he has used that position to provide others within positions of power with access to the Supreme Court’s building; to establish and build relationships with the rich and powerful; and, finally, to create his own network of power among his former clerks.
…
Over the next seven weeks, Thomas will be one of nine people releasing decisions in 40 cases at the Supreme Court that will set forth the standard for whether presidents will be immune from criminal prosecution for actions taken in office for life, whether his Bruen decision renders unconstitutional the federal ban on gun possession by those people who have a domestic-violence restraining order out against them, and whether medication abortion remains accessible in a post-Roe America on its current terms, among many other pivotal decisions.
Further still — and throwing his cries of grievance even further into doubt — he will be doing so on a court that is the most conservative it has ever been since he joined it.
Thomas’s vote matters in all of those 40 cases, he will write an opinion in many of them; and he will write the court’s opinion in a handful of cases — setting the national rule for whatever legal question is at issue in those cases.
It is the 33rd year in which Clarence Thomas is doing so as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. From this “hideous place.”
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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I don’t know if anyone is reading this. I’ve had quite a disturbing day so far. My phone suddenly stopped working and I was unable to make or receive calls. I spent a couple of hours messaging back and forth with tech support, and they finally got things working. Somehow I got thrown off the network and couldn’t get back on. But the guy finally figured it out and I can phone and text again. Fortunately, I got a very kind and patient representative who hung in there with me all that time.
Dakinikat wondered if the problem could have something to do with the solar storm that made the northern lights visible all the way down South. I guess it’s possible. The phone was working yesterday until around 1PM. I didn’t realize there was a problem until later though. Anyway, enough of my boring life.
Almost 15 years ago, I was in bad shape. I was divorced, broke, drinking too much, and living in a dated walk-up next to a noisy bar. (It was only minutes from my young daughter, it had a nice view of the bay here in Newport, and I could afford it.) The local veterinary hospital was a few doors down; they always kept one or two adoptable animals in the window. One day, a gorgeous black cat, with a little white tuxedo patch and big gold-green eyes, showed up in a small cage. I stared at her for a while. She stared back patiently.
Tom NIchols with Carla
I wasn’t taking very good care of myself at that moment, so I decided I couldn’t take care of a cat. I walked on. For weeks, the cat sat there. For weeks, we stared at each other. One day, as I was deep in my cups, I took a walk with a friend and co-worker who also happened to be my next-door neighbor. “You look at that damn cat every day,” he said. “Just go in and get it.”
So I did.
The cat was called “RC” and she was a stray, but her preexisting spaying and good health showed that she’d once had a home. Now she was the queen of the animal clinic: Because of her gentle temperament, the staff would let her out of the cage after hours, and she would sit on their desks while they did their paperwork.
I picked her up. She looked at me as if to say: Yeah, I recognize you. You’re the doofus who stared at me for weeks. I signed the papers and took her home. She was fluffy and black-haired, so I decided I would name her after Carla Tortelli from the show Cheers; thus, she became Carla T. Nichols. She explored the apartment quietly for a day or two, and then, one afternoon, I found her on my bed, stretched out on her back, paws up, purring. Yep, she was saying. This will do.
I was still deeply depressed, but every night, Carla would come and flake out over my keyboard as I struggled to work. That’s enough of that,she seemed to say. And then we would go into the living room, where I would sit in a chair and Carla would sit on the armrest. (We’ve now both seen almost every episode of Law & Order.) Slowly, she added routine to my life, but mostly, we had lots of hours of doing nothing—the quiet time that can feel sort of desolate if you’re alone, but like healing if you have the right company.
Soon, I started to see daylight. I met a woman named Lynn. I laid off the booze. I got help of various kinds.
Lynn started to come to the apartment more often, but Carla gave her a full examination before bestowing approval: That cat was not going to let some newcomer waltz in and wreck the careful feline therapy she’d been providing. Finally, Carla climbed on the pillows one morning and curled up around Lynn’s head. Okay, she was saying. Lynn can stay.
That was the beginning of the turnaround. I hope you’ll go read the rest. It’s a wonderful description of what can happen when you welcome a special animal into your life.
Former President Donald Trump used a dubious accounting maneuver to claim improper tax breaks from his troubled Chicago tower, according to an IRS inquiry uncovered by ProPublica and The New York Times. Losing a yearslong audit battle over the claim could mean a tax bill of more than $100 million.
The 92-story, glass-sheathed skyscraper along the Chicago River is the tallest and, at least for now, the last major construction project by Trump. Through a combination of cost overruns and the bad luck of opening in the teeth of the Great Recession, it was also a vast money loser.
But when Trump sought to reap tax benefits from his losses, the IRS has argued, he went too far and in effect wrote off the same losses twice.
The first write-off came on Trump’s tax return for 2008. With sales lagging far behind projections, he claimed that his investment in the condo-hotel tower met the tax code definition of “worthless,” because his debt on the project meant he would never see a profit. That move resulted in Trump reporting losses as high as $651 million for the year, ProPublica and the Times found.
Emile Munier, A small child reading to a cat
There is no indication the IRS challenged that initial claim, though that lack of scrutiny surprised tax experts consulted for this article. But in 2010, Trump and his tax advisers sought to extract further benefits from the Chicago project, executing a maneuver that would draw years of inquiry from the IRS. First, he shifted the company that owned the tower into a new partnership. Because he controlled both companies, it was like moving coins from one pocket to another. Then he used the shift as justification to declare $168 million in additional losses over the next decade.
The issues around Trump’s case were novel enough that, during his presidency, the IRS undertook a high-level legal review before pursuing it. ProPublica and the Times, in consultation with tax experts, calculated that the revision sought by the IRS would create a new tax bill of more than $100 million, plus interest and potential penalties….
The reporting by ProPublica and the Times about the Chicago tower reveals a second component of Trump’s quarrel with the IRS. This account was pieced together from a collection of public documents, including filings from the New York attorney general’s suit against Trump in 2022, a passing reference to the audit in a congressional report that same year and an obscure 2019 IRS memorandum that explored the legitimacy of the accounting maneuver. The memorandum did not identify Trump, but the documents, along with tax records previously obtained by the Times and additional reporting, indicated that the former president was the focus of the inquiry.
A sex discrimination lawsuit against Donald Trump’s campaign has triggered new accusations that Trump’s lawyers have intentionally covered up settlement payments to women, in violation of federal law.
On Friday, watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, demanding an investigation into the alleged cover-up. The complaint cites new allegations from 2016 Trump campaign aide A.J. Delgado, which she lodged in a sworn court declaration earlier this week as part of her ongoing discrimination suit against Trump’s political operation.
Delgado’s filing presented evidence of top Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz openly admitting that the campaign wanted to use a law firm to cover up a potential settlement payout in 2017. The arrangement, as Delgado described it, appears specifically designed to evade the consequences of federal disclosure laws that require campaigns to publicly report the identities of payment recipients.
“In other words, the payment would be routed through a middleman, to hide the fact that the Campaign had settled, from the public and the FEC,” Delgado stated. “I thus have direct, personal experience with the Defendant-Campaign hiding settlement payments to women, routing them through a ‘middleman law firm,’ which to the public would only appear as payments ‘for legal services.’”
Delgado also claimed to have “information and reason to believe” that other campaign payments have hidden settlements with women “who raised complaints of gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and sexual harassment.” Those payments, she said, are related to the $4.1 million that flowed to Kasowitz’s law firm over a two-month period immediately following the November 2020 election, as well as millions in mysterious legal reimbursements to the campaign’s compliance firm, Red Curve Solutions, which The Daily Beast first reported earlier this month, prompting a federal complaint.
The declaration is particularly significant in that it captures a direct admission of the campaign’s actual intentions behind this middleman arrangement—to keep the existence of a settlement from the public, and, by doing so, from the FEC itself.
A new Washington Post report that Trump made explicit policy promises to a roomful of Big Oil executives—while urging them to raise $1 billion for his campaign—is a powerful story in part because it wrecks what’s left of that mystique. In case you didn’t already know this, it shows yet again that if Trump has employed that aforementioned knowledge of elite corruption and self-dealing to any ends in his public career, it’s chiefly to benefit himself.
James Pelham, little girl reading with her cat
That counter narrative is a story that Democrats have a big opportunity to tell—if they seize on this news effectively. How might they do that?
For starters, the revelations seem to cry out for more scrutiny from Congress. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has been presiding over hearings into the oil industry as chair of the Budget Committee, says it’s “highly likely” that the committee will examine the new revelations.
“This is practically an invitation to ask more questions,” Whitehouse told me, describing this as a “natural extension of the investigation already underway.”
There’s plenty to explore. As the Postreports, an oil company executive at the gathering, held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last month, complained about environmental regulations under the Biden administration. Then this happened:
Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people.
Obviously industries have long donated to politicians in both parties in hopes of governance that takes their interests into account, and they explicitly lobby for this as well. But in this case, Trump may have made detailed, concrete promises while simultaneously soliciting a precise amount in campaign contributions.
For instance, the Post reports, Trump vowed to scrap Biden’s ban on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports “on the first day.” He also promised to overturn new tailpipe emission limits designed to encourage the transition to electric vehicles, and he dangled more leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, “a priority that several of the executives raised.”
“The phrase that instantly came to mind as I was reading the story was ‘quid pro quo,’” Whitehouse told me. He also pointed to a new Politico report that oil industry officials are drawing up executive orders for Trump to sign as president. “Put those things together and it starts to look mighty damn corrupt,” Whitehouse said.
FAIRHOPE, Alabama — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced “nastiness” and “lies” over the last several years and decried Washington, D.C., as a “hideous place.”
Thomas spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments pushing back on his critics in response to a question about working in a world that seems meanspirited.
Jan Steen, Children want to teach a cat reading
“I think there’s challenges to that. We’re in a world and we — certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been — just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible,” Thomas said.
“But you have some choices. You don’t get to prevent people from doing horrible things or saying horrible things. But one you have to understand and accept the fact that they can’t change you unless you permit that,” Thomas said.
Thomas has faced criticisms that he accepted luxury trips from a GOP donor without reporting them. Thomas last year maintained that he didn’t have to report the trips paid for by one of “our dearest friends.” His wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas has faced criticism for using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
He did not discuss the content of the criticisms directly, but said that “reckless” people in Washington will “bomb your reputation.”
“They don’t bomb you necessarily, but they bomb your reputation or your good name or your honor. And that’s not a crime. But they can do as much harm that way,” Thomas said.
His reputation is already shot to hell. Why doesn’t he just resign and get out of Washington if he hates it so much?
Less than six months out from the presidential contest, leading Republicans, including several of Donald J. Trump’s potential running mates, have refused to commit to accepting the results of the election, signaling that the party may again challenge the outcome if its candidate loses.
In a series of recent interviews, Republican officials and candidates have dodged the question, responded with nonanswers or offered clear falsehoods rather than commit to a notion that was once so uncontroversial that it was rarely discussed before an election.
The evasive answers show how the former president’s refusal to concede his defeat after the 2020 election has ruptured a tenet of American democracy — that candidates are bound by the outcome. Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans are now emulating his hedging well in advance of any voting.
For his part, Mr. Trump has said he will abide by a fair election but has also suggested that he already considers the election unfair. Mr. Trump frequently refers to the federal and state charges he is facing as “election interference.” He has refused to rule out the possibility of another riot from his supporters if he loses again.
“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” Mr. Trump said last month when asked by Time magazine about the prospect of political violence. “It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
The authors go on to list several prominent Republicans who have refused to say if they will accept the election results. Read the rest at the NYT.
I’m going to end there. I’m really stressed out by my phone issue and a think I need a nap. Take care everyone.
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The smell of fear begins to bubble up through all the other odors. John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
These are days when you have to hold on to every instance where Justice and the Rule of Law stand firm. The small victories come when an insurrectionist gets jail time. Today, we learned that Steve Bannon is headed to Jail. Peter Navarro started his sentence in March.”Ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro begins serving prison sentence after historic contempt prosecution.” This event was reported by CNN. (Note: BB reminded me that one of the last things Donald did in office was to pardon Bannon for fundraising for a border wall that never happened.)
His conviction was a rare example of a member of Trump’s inner circle being held accountable by the criminal justice system for their resistance to scrutiny. Navarro’s stint in prison comes as Trump himself has yet to face criminal consequences for the various crimes he’s been accused of committing.
“It’s historic, and will be to future White House aides who get subpoenaed by Congress,” Stanley Brand, a former House general counsel who now represents Navarro as one of his defense lawyers, said on Monday.
Navarro’s punishment for evading a House probe will boost the leverage lawmakers will have – under administrations of both parties – to secure cooperation in their investigations.
CNBC reports on Bannon’s next stop. “Trump White House aide Steve Bannon loses appeal of contempt of Congress conviction.”
A federal appeals court on Friday unanimously upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of former Trump White House senior aide Steve Bannon for refusing to testify and provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.The appeals court rejected Bannon’s argument that he was not guilty because his attorney had advised him not to comply with a subpoena from the House committee.
The ruling by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit makes it more likely that Bannon will soon have to begin serving a sentence of four months in jail for his conviction of two counts of contempt.
Bannon could ask the full judicial line-up of the D.C. Circuit to hear his appeal again, which might postpone his jail term. He also could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal of Friday’s ruling.
But such requests typically face very long odds of success.
CNBC has requested comment from Bannon’s appellate lawyer on the ruling. The decision was written by Judge Bradley Garcia, who was appointed to the D.C. Circuit appeals court last year by President Joe Biden. The other two judges on the panel were Justin Walker, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, and Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
In March, Peter Navarro, another ex-adviser to Trump, began serving a four-month federal jail sentence after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his conviction for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House committee. Pillard also was a member of the three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit that upheld Navarro’s conviction.
Bannon will also spend 4 months in jail. This is from the New York Times. “Federal Appeals Court Upholds Bannon’s Contempt Conviction. Stephen Bannon, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, had been found guilty of defying a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee. He now faces a four-month prison sentence.
The decision by the court means that Mr. Bannon could soon become the second former Trump aide to be jailed for ignoring a subpoena from the committee. The House panel sought his testimony as part of its wide-ranging investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, and its explosive hearings two years ago previewed much of the evidence used against Mr. Trump in a federal indictment filed last summer accusing him of plotting to overturn his defeat.
In March, Peter Navarro, who once worked as a trade adviser to Mr. Trump, reported to federal prison in Miami to begin serving his own four-month prison stint after a jury found him guilty of contempt of Congress for ignoring one of the committee’s subpoenas.
The judge who oversaw Mr. Bannon’s trial had allowed him to remain at home during the appeal of his conviction and is now in a position to force him to surrender.
You may also remember that there were major indictments in the Georgia case, even though the case itself was stalled. John Eastman surrendered at a Georgia jail 8 months ago. He was released pending trial. Three Trump lawyers–Sidney Powel, Kenneth Cheesebro, and Jenna Ellis–pleaded guilty. Rudy Guilliani and Mark Meadows are also considered co-conspirators.
Paul Manaford got his pardon ticket punched. He’s looking to be a repeat offender. This is from the Washington Post. “Paul Manafort, poised to rejoin Trump world, aided Chinese media deal. The former Trump campaign chairman, likely to help manage this summer’s GOP convention, resumed consulting after being pardoned in 2020.”
After pleading guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice, Paul Manafort, the globe-trotting political consultant and former campaign chairman for Donald Trump, asked for leniency in his sentencing, telling a federal judge five years ago that he was nearly 70 years old, struggling with health concerns and remorseful for his actions.
The judge rejected his entreaties in the spring of 2019, ordering Manafort to remain behind bars for more than seven years.Less than two years later, however, Manafort’s criminal record was wiped clean when Trump pardoned him. He was among the dozensof allies, extended family members and former campaign staffers allowed to walk free.
With his freedom, Manafort hardly retired to a quiet home life. Instead, the longtime power broker — briefly brought low by the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — reengaged in international consulting, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with his activities who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Manafort has been assisting an effort to launch a Netflix-like mobile streaming and entertainment platform in China that, according to corporate documents, has the endorsement of the Chinese government. In an email to The Post, Manafort said he was “not involved with China” and has “had nothing to do with China, including Chinese businesses, government, individuals, or anything else,” but acknowledged that he “was asked to make introductions to U.S. studios and potential U.S. partners in the venture.”
Manafort, now 75, also sought to advise political figures in Japan and South Korea, according to a person who was approached by party officials in those countries checking on the consultant’s reputation. Manafort has roamed widely, traveling to Guatemala last year on the invitation of a migrant advocacy group called Proyecto Guatemala Migrante. The group’s leader, Verónica Pimentel, said she and a colleague discussed Latin American politics and the Latino vote with Manafort and introduced him to a Guatemalan presidential candidate, Ricardo Sagastume, who confirmed the meeting.
Emails, documents and interviews fill in details of Manafort’s life and work between 2020, when he swapped prison for home confinement owing to the coronavirus pandemic and then landed a pardon from Trump, and this election cycle, as he prepares to reenter Trump’s orbit. Advisers say Trump is determined to hire Manafort, likely handing him a substantial role at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, because he appreciates that his onetime campaign chairman has remained loyal to him even while serving in prison.
The fake elector arrests in Arizona might just interfere with all the Trump repeat offenders, including the Donald up there at the top of the offensive list. Christina Bob and Rudy Guiliani are defendants also. With its dalliance on Presidential Immunity, it looks like the Supreme Court could stall any or all of these. Hillary Clinton was on Morning Joe on Thursday. She made stern mention of the Court and its actions. This is from The Hill.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knocked the Supreme Court on Thursday for delaying its ruling on former President Trump’s presidential immunity claim in his federal election interference case.
“The other point I would quickly make is that the Supreme Court is doing our country a grave disservice in not deciding the case about immunity,” Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Clinton said some Supreme Court justices were seemingly trying to find loopholes for the former president during arguments before the court late last month.
“I read the excellent decision by the court of appeals, and the judges there, I think, covered every possible argument,” Clinton said, “and what we heard when this case was tried before the Supreme Court — to my ear at least — were efforts to try to find loopholes, to try to create an opportunity for Trump to have attempted to overturn an election, to have carried out hundreds and hundreds of pages of very highly classified material for his own amusement, interest, trading — we don’t know what.”
“These are very serious charges against any American, but someone who’s both been a president and wants to be a president again — that should cause any voter to think not twice, but many, many times over, about whether we should entrust our country to him,” Clinton added.
Late last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump’s presidential immunity claim and seemed poised to grant him at least some protections from criminal prosecution after hearing two hours of arguments.
The court still has not made a decision on the question of immunity, but the justices’ lengthy discussion of how to create guardrails between official versus personal conduct suggested they may ask the lower court to revisit its decision. Doing so would almost certainly delay Trump’s numerous legal proceedings.
The court delayed Trump’s election interference case just by taking up the immunity claims rather than letting the appeal court decision stand. Any further decision at the lower court might be appealed, a process that could again send the case to the high court.
Clinton said Wednesday that the American people ought to have an answer about whether Trump is guilty in the federal election interference case and in the other cases before they head to the polls in November to decide whether to send him back to the White House.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Clinton said. “And the people in our country, it looks as though will most likely go to vote without knowing the outcome of these other very serious trials.”
The Supreme Court has wrapped up arguments for its current term and until around the end of June, it will be handing down opinions for the remaining cases, among them, over a dozen involving hot-button issues including abortion, guns, homelessness, Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy plan and the prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
This term, which began in October 2023, follows two in which the Supreme Court handed down consequential decisions unwinding the constitutional right to abortion and bringing to an end affirmative action in higher education. The justices kicked off this latest slate of cases with several involving administrative law and online speech. But it was a pair of disputes involving Trump that captured widespread attention and thrust the justices into the center of legal battles with high stakes for the former president as he mounts a bid to return to the White House.
The court has already decided one of the cases involving the presumptive Republican presidential nominee: whether Colorado could keep him off the 2024 ballot using a Civil War-era provision of the 14th Amendment. The high court ruled in March that states cannot disqualify Trump from holding the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and allowed him to stay on the ballot.
“It’s the most consequential term of my lifetime,” said Victoria Nourse, law professor at Georgetown University, “because they’re covering a gambit of things from guns to abortion to presidential power.”
So, we’ve seen what happens when courts do their job and when they try to do something entirely different. This is an Op-Ed from MSNBC’s Hayes Brown. “Judge Aileen Cannon set herself up for failure. Donald Trump’s classified documents case could prove difficult for even the most experienced judge. Judge Cannon is not exactly handling herself well.”
It’s entirely possible that a more experienced judge would be facing similar problems. But that Cannon is even in a position to make these decisions is due to an almost literary twist of fate. There are more than two dozen federal district judges in the southern district of Florida. Cases are assigned at random among them. It is only through the luck of the draw that Trump would see his classified documents case fall before Cannon. With the shadow of the special master case looming over her, she’s opted to take her time to get things right. Yet that has opened her up to an entirely different set of criticisms. That includes her frankly bizarre decision to have the prosecution and defense spend time on crafting potential jury instructions and arguments regarding the Presidential Records Act rather than deal with the more pressing issues on her plate.
Unfortunately for everyone who isn’t a co-defendant in this case, Cannon’s careful treading fits perfectly with Trump’s preferred strategy of delaying his court appearances for as long as possible. The trial had originally been scheduled to begin on May 20 — though given that Trump is in the middle of a separate criminal trial in New York, that was clearly not going to happen. Both Smith, who brought the charges against Trump last year, and the former president’s lawyers agreed that a delay would be necessary. Smith’s team argued that a summer trial was still possible, while Trump naturally pushed for a trial date after Election Day. Since a hearing on the matter in March, Cannon had only given hints at when a rescheduled trial would take place, the last of which was Monday when she bumped back a key CIPA-related filing deadline.
Again, the evidentiary role of classified material would likely slow down any criminal trial, let alone one involving a former president. But given the clear evidence that Trump was in possession of the documents seized despite a subpoena to return them and attempted to foil the government’s efforts to recover them, this should be an open and shut case once it gets before a jury. Instead, Cannon has only painted herself into a corner, overcorrecting from her past mistakes in a way that has only exacerbated her subsequent follies.
Well, enough of that! At least I have an excuse to use one of my favorite Warren Zevon songs today!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
athan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, 
These last 10 years have taught us that we may have come a long way from not being able to vote, but the party of Troglydites can send us right back to being chattel and slaves in a matter of years. Women, the GLBT community, immigrant populations, and America’s black community are having basic rights stripped from them daily. The shit show in front of the Manhattan Courthouse yesterday was appalling. 
“Matt Gaetz evokes ‘standing by’ language adopted by Proud Boys as he attends court with Donald Trump.”
Trump took advantage of 
Before I get going on today’s political news, I want to share this story that caught my eye while I was surfing around. 
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Cohen will probably continue to behave, but his outside social media, much like his former boss’s, is a challenging problem for the court. This is from the 
There are examples if you happen to be interested. I’ve lived long enough to be tired of white men and their ever-lasting gobstopper whinging. Cohen is not a victim. He is one in a long line of enablers. His life would be better served if he engaged in behavior that wasn’t quite so self-serving.
This week, they’re preparing this move, as reported in the 
This is from Chris Geidner, writing at
CNBC reports
Paul Manaford got his pardon ticket punched. He’s looking to be a repeat offender. This is from the Washington Post. “
The fake elector arrests in Arizona might just interfere with all the Trump repeat offenders, including the Donald up there at the top of the offensive list. 
The Supreme Court is at the end of the term and still has some pretty significant cases to decide. This is reported by CBS News‘ Melissa Quinn. 
So, we’ve seen what happens when courts do their job and when they try to do something entirely different. 
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