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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A woman sewing blue denim pants, by “Master of the Blue Jeans.”
I’m going to begin today with a story that has nothing to do with politics or current events–just because I think it’s interesting. Did you know that people wore blue jeans way back in the 16th century? I didn’t. An art exhibit will soon open in Paris that will focus on a mysterious artist, known only as “Master of the Blue Jeans.”
An exhibition centered on the “Master of the Blue Jeans” is opening in Paris this month—and the work on display is not that of Levi Strauss, founder of the eponymous clothing company, but rather a 17th-century Italian painter.
The upcoming show at Galerie Canesso features two paintings by the mysterious artist, who was active in northern Italy in the 1600s and is known only by his “master” moniker. The painter’s oil canvases depict early iterations of the stiff blue fabric beloved today, as worn by Italian peasants. According to a statement, the pieces have proved to be important artifacts in garment history, “pushing back [blue jeans’] provenance by centuries.”
Speaking with Artnet’s Vittoria Benzine, Maurizio Canesso, an art collector and the gallery’s founder, says, “People are still not very familiar with the true history of blue jeans, as they confuse it with the material made by Levi Strauss.”
In truth, Canesso argues, when the American businessman behind Levi’s jeans started selling denim work pants in the late 1800s, he merely added metal rivets and structure to a fabric that already boasted a storied European past.
“Jeans come from Genoa, while denim comes from the French city of Nîmes,” says Canesso. Blue jeans were made with perpendicular stitches in northwest Italy, while denim was woven in chevron patterns in southern France. But the key component of the fabric’s history is its coloration.
“Until the 11th century, no one could wear blue fabric because they didn’t know how to make blue color adhere,” Canesso says. “Only in the year 1000 did this begin to happen using woad leaves, and at a very high cost. The genius of the Genoese was to find the indigo stone in India and make this an industrial and therefore low-cost process.”
The ten denim-themed paintings attributed to the master were previously thought to be the work of several different artists. But in 2004, curator Gerlinde Gruber reattributed the group of artworks to a single unnamed painter then dubbed the Master of the Blue Jeans. By 2010, Canesso had acquired all of the master’s works, and he presented them in an exhibition at his Paris gallery that same year.
“Unfortunately, we have no new theories about who the Master of the Blue Jeans was,” Véronique Damian, an art historian at Galerie Canesso, tells the Observer’s Vanessa Thorpe. Evidence indicates the artist spent the bulk of his career in Italy’s northern region of Lombardy, though he may trained elsewhere.
I’m including some of the artist’s work in this post, just because.
In the more painful world of politics, Trump had a bad day in New York yesterday, and he got some bad news in India; but he got some gifts from judges in Florida and Georgia.
As I’m sure you’re aware, Stormy Daniels testified in Trump’s hush money case yesterday.
Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress at the center of Donald Trump’s hush money trial, testified Tuesday about a disturbing sexual encounter she says she had with him, leading to angry, profane muttering from the former president that alarmed the judge.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan called Trump’s lawyer Todd Blancheto a sidebar during a midday break to say that Trumpwas “cursing audibly” and possibly intimidating Daniels, who had begun testifying, according to a trial transcript.
Beggar Boy with a Piece of Pie (wearing a denim jacket)
“I understand that your client is upset at this point,” Merchan said to the defense attorney,according to the transcript,“but he is cursing audibly and he is shaking his headvisually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.”
Blanche assured the judge he would speak to Trump.
“I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Merchan said. “You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that.”
The exchange punctuated a day of rage — sometimes whispered from the defense table, sometimes declared loudly by Daniels from the witness stand.
It was one of several surreal moments on the 13th day of the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president, including descriptions by Daniels of their alleged sexual encounter in 2006 that were so detailed that defense attorneys demanded a mistrial.
While Merchan rejected their request, Daniels at times seemed to be describing nonconsensual sex that could be considered highly prejudicial for the jury, which in turn could give Trump — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — solid grounds to appeal if he is found guilty.
It sounds like the sex actually was nonconsensual though. Daniels’ description of what happened sounds very much like a date rape situation in which she was taken advantage of by a much older and more powerful man. She was 27. He was 60. He was much taller and stronger. She was invited for dinner, but there was no dinner. When she was ready to leave, she went to the bathroom. When she came back, he was on the bed in boxers. She tried to leave, but he blocked the door. This description is from Harry Litman on Twitter:
thought time to go. when opened the bathroom door, Trump had come in and was on the bed, in boxer shirts and a t-shirt. she was startled. felt like room spun in full motion. blood leaves my hands and feet. “ohmygod — what did I miss to get here?” she laughed nervously
The next thing I knew I was on the bed. opposite side of bed. missionary position. objection – sustained
I blacked out. but I was not drugged in any way, no alcohol. didn’t feel threatened physically “There was an imbalance of power for sure. but I was not threatened verbally or physically”
Had sex with him on the bed. Merchan sustaining objections to details. Staring at ceiling didn’t know how I got there. sustained. stricken touch his skin? objection sustained. he wasn’t wearing a condom. concerning to her but didn’t say anything.
sex was brief. remembers getting dressed. sitting on edge of bed, noticed completely dark outside. hard to get shoes on, hands shaking so hard. DJT: “oh it’s great, let’s get together again honey bunch.” I just wanted to leave. DVD she signed was on nightstand.
DJT: “We have to get together again soon” “we were so fantastic together. talked about the show” I just left as fast as I could. Didn’t express any concern about Melania. or mention her. didn’t have dinner. took cab back to hotel.
I felt ashamed I didn’t stop the sex so I didn’t tell many people about it. Remembered some additional details later. Merchan very stern about level of detail — wants to keep it spare.
It’s pretty clear from Daniels’ description that she was traumatized. I doubt if the judge understands that, but maybe some jurors will. Just because she is a porn actress doesn’t mean she can’t be raped. Her description is also reminiscent of E. Jean Carroll’s experience–Trump lifted her up against the wall and grabbed her genitals before she realized what was happening. It’s also reminisce of his own description in the Access Hollywood tape–how he can grab women “by the pussy. If you’re a star they let you do it.”
Daniels matters for reasons outside of the courtroom and the specifics of this hush-money trial. Daniels’ story is yet another reminder of what may prove to be Trump’s electoral downfall: His bottomless misogyny.
On the witness stand, Daniels reportedly spoke quickly and was apparently quite nervous. Initially, her story of meeting Trump sounded funny. She painted him as a pathetic older man trying — and failing — to impress the younger woman. When he first asked her to dinner, she replied “no,” but with an expletive. Her publicist eventually talked her into it, hoping Daniels could leverage the connection into a spot on “The Apprentice.” In his hotel room, she described him wearing “silk or satin” pajamas and asked him to put on real clothes. He allegedly used the “don’t even sleep in the same room” line when she asked about his wife, Melania, who had recently had a baby. Daniels described Trump as “pompous” and “arrogant.” She recounted how she jokingly spanked him with a magazine, hoping to tease him into being less of a jerk.
Then the tone of her story changed, as she described how they came to have sex. Trump waited until she was in the bathroom, Daniels said, and then he stripped down to boxer shorts and a T-shirt. “The room spun in slow motion,” she recalled on the witness stand. When she made for the door, “he was bigger and blocking the way,” she said of Trump. She denied it was sexual assault, however, because “I was not threatened either verbally or physically.” [….]
Whether or not Trump’s sexual encounter with Daniels was consensual in the legal sense, she describes it as unwanted.
“I didn’t say anything at all,” she told the court repeatedly. Claiming that she “blacked out” during the encounter, afterward, Daniels said, “my hands were shaking so hard” and “I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it and that I didn’t say ‘No.'”
Another painting by Master of the Blue Jeans
A person doesn’t have to be threatened in order for sex to be nonconsensual. Back to Marcotte’s piece:
Since the release of the “Access Hollywood” video in 2016, in which Trump can be heard bragging about sexual assault, the Beltway media has repeatedly tried to move on from the story of Trump’s legion of issues with women. Indeed, when Carroll’s accusations first came out in 2019, the press barely paid any mind. But the story of his rampant misogyny has never fully gone away. There was the Women’s March that overshadowed his 2017 inauguration. Then the over two dozen women who stepped forward with stories of being subject to the sexual harassment and assault Trump himself described so vividly. Trump, of course, is more responsible than any other person on the planet for the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the stampede of Republican state legislators banning abortion. He promised to stack the Supreme Court with anti-choice justices, and his three appointees provided the votes necessary in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which ended the legal right to abortion. While Trump has tried to make moderate-sounding noises on this issue, he keeps inadvertently revealing his anti-choice radicalism. In a recent Time interview, for instance, he indicated that he’s fine if states “monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion.”
On the stand, Daniels provided ugly details about how Trump treated her, and about how Trump treats, and views, women. These insights are notable, but they’re not new. In 2016, leaked audio of Trump making grotesque and sexist comments about women to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush almost derailed his presidential campaign. Last year, Trump was held liable for sexual assaulting and then repeatedly defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
But Daniels’s testimony is a reminder that contempt and mistreatment of women is a core theme of Trump’s life and politics. Both the press and Democratic opponents have struggled to make this issue central to 2024, even though abortion rights and women’s health care are the key issues of the campaign. It’s unclear whether the trial will spark more reporting and discussion of Trump’s treatment of and attitudes about women. But it should….
Daniels’s testimony is intended to establish the background facts of the payment. It also, though, paints Trump as a liar, a bully, and a sexual manipulator. Daniels said while she was in Trump’s hotel room, she went to the bathroom, and when he came out he was in his boxer shorts, a moment Daniels describes as “like a jump scare.” She said, “the room spun in slow motion” and she realized “I’ve put myself in this bad situation.”
Daniels is careful to emphasize that Trump did not physically coerce her. He did, however, according to Daniels, suggest that if she cooperated with him he could help her career through his connections and a possible appearance on the Celebrity Apprentice reality show, where Trump was the star. She eventually agreed to have sex even though Trump did not use a condom — she was adamant about using condoms in her adult film shoots.
By Master of the Blue Jeans.
She testified that during sex she stared at the ceiling and tried to think of something else, and afterwards she had trouble dressing because her hands were shaking. She said, “I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it and that I didn’t say no.”
Daniels kept in touch with Trump for some time because he was still offering her the chance to appear on Celebrity Apprentice, which would have been a huge mainstream boost to her career. She met with Trump once more in Los Angeles, at which point “he kept trying to make sexual advances, putting his hand on my leg, scooting closer.” She rebuffed him, and in a later phone call he admitted he was not going to put her on his television show. At that point she ceased communicating with him.
Again, Daniels has not accused Trump of sexual harassment or violence, and she says their encounter was consensual. Her testimony makes clear, though, that Trump was pressuring her for sex in return for business opportunities — a variation on the ugly tradition of the Hollywood casting couch. We don’t know if Trump ever had any intention of keeping his promises or of helping Daniels. But whether he did or not, his actions as she describes them were sleazy at best, and she found the experience painful and traumatic enough to leave her literally shaking.
The encounter doesn’t sound consensual to me. As I said above, it sounds like date rape.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal case in Florida — on charges that he hoarded classified secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate after his presidency — has indefinitely postponed the trial, once scheduled for May 20.
The date had been widely expected to move amid a tangle of pretrial conflicts between special counsel Jack Smith and Trump’s attorneys. Smith had urged Judge Aileen Cannon to reschedule the trial to begin on July 8, but an order from the judge on Tuesday afternoon suggested that she is unlikely to even decide on a new trial date before late July.
Cannon, a Trump appointee who took the bench in late 2020, indicated in the order that, before setting a new trial date, she intends to resolve the backlog of other issues in the case that have piled up on her plate. Smith’s defenders have criticized Cannon for what they see as a plodding pace in resolving pretrial matters, and tensions between the special counsel and the judge have flared in recent months over a series of puzzling rulings that threatened to derail the case.
“[F]inalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and [classified evidence] issues … would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions,” Cannon wrote in the five-page order.
That reshuffling further clouds the picture for Smith, who is also awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity that could determine whether his other case against Trump — charges in Washington D.C. for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — can move forward this year….
Trump has sought to delay all of his criminal cases until after this year’s election. If he wins, he could shut down the two federal cases brought by Smith, and the state cases in New York and Georgia also might have to be frozen.
The Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday decided to hear an appeal of a judge’s ruling allowing District Attorney Fani Willis to remain at the helm of Fulton County’s election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
The court’s decision almost certainly means a significant delay of a trial here for Trump and his 14 co-defendants and signals that Willis’ leadership role isn’t guaranteed. It is unclear how long the appeals court will take to decide the issue but they are not known for moving swiftly.
Farmers wearing jeans, 1930s
“There’s no way this case gets to trial this year,” said Atlanta defense attorney Andrew Fleischman, who is closing following the case. “I would expect the appeals court to issue its opinion some time next year.”
On March 29, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued a “certificate of immediate review,” which allowed the defendants to appeal his ruling to the Georgia Court of Appeals before a trial begins.
Under Appeals Court rules, such a pretrial — or interlocutory — appeal is typically assigned to a three-judge screening panel. And all it takes is for one of those judges to decide whether the court accepts the appeal. The court’s order one-page order did not divulge which judge voted to grant the application.
In his order granting the pre-trial review, McAfee said he will continue working on the case, resolving pending motions, while the appeals court takes up the removal issue.
The bad news for Trump is that he is losing a significant percentage of Republican voters in the primaries, which are still going on. Niki Haley is still getting votes. Adam Wren and Madison Fernandez at Politico: Unexpected warning signs for Trump in busy Indiana primary.
In 2016, Indiana put Donald Trump on the doorstep of the GOP presidential nomination. But eight years later, the state he called “Importantville” delivered his campaign some flashing red warning signs as Nikki Haley cleaned up in the suburbs.
By virtue of its late-in-the-nominating-calendar primary, the Hoosier state has always occupied a unique and occasionally powerful perch to make or break candidacies: Sen. Ted Cruz and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich dropped out immediately after Trump’s victory that year. But the barn-red state also often acts as a pace car for Republicans nationally.
And in a primary that saw a record-breaking $98 million splash across the state, according to AdImpact, Tuesday was no exception.
A zombie Haley candidacy continued to punch above its weight in the Trumpiest of states: The former South Carolina governor is on track to break 20 percent for the first time since she dropped out of the race two months ago.
Read more at the link.
I don’t know if you’ve been following the reporting about New York Times editor Joe Kahn and his pathetic explanations for why his paper seems to be rooting for another Trump presidency.
Joe Kahn, after two years in charge of the New York Times newsroom, has learned nothing.
He had an extraordinary opportunity, upon taking over from Dean Baquet, to right the ship: to recognize that the Times was not warning sufficiently of the threat to democracy presented by a second Trump presidency.
But to Kahn, democracy is a partisan issue and he’s not taking sides. He made that clear in an interview with obsequious former employee Ben Smith, now the editor of Semafor.
Kahn accused those of us asking the Times to do better of wanting it to be a house organ of the Democratic party:
To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda.
But critics like me aren’t asking the Times to abandon its independence. We’re asking the Times to recognize that it isn’t living up to its own standards of truth-telling and independence when it obfuscates the stakes of the 2024 election, covers up for Trump’s derangement, and goes out of its way to make Biden look weak.
And to the extent that Kahn has changed anything in the Times newsroom since Baquet left, it’s to double down on a form of objectivity that favors the comfortable-white-male perspective and considers anything else little more than hysteria.
Throwing Baquet under the bus, Kahn called the summer of the Black Lives Matter protests “an extreme moment” during which the Times lost its way.
“I think we’ve learned from it. I think we found our footing after that,” he said.
I translate that to mean that the old guard has reasserted total control over the rabble.
Read the rest at Press Watch.
I’ll wrap this up with a couple of creepy stories about Robert Kennedy Jr.
In 2010, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumor. Mr. Kennedy said he consulted several of the country’s top neurologists, many of whom had either treated or spoken to his uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, before his death the previous year of brain cancer.
Several doctors noticed a dark spot on the younger Mr. Kennedy’s brain scans and concluded that he had a tumor, he said in a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Kennedy was immediately scheduled for a procedure at Duke University Medical Center by the same surgeon who had operated on his uncle, he said.
While packing for the trip, he said, he received a call from a doctor at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital who had a different opinion: Mr. Kennedy, he believed, had a dead parasite in his head.
The doctor believed that the abnormality seen on his scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Mr. Kennedy said in the deposition.
Gross. Maybe that explains some of his weird ideas?
A right-wing social media influencer hired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign who previously said Jan. 6 was “Democrat misdirection” appears to have himself been on the restricted grounds of the U.S. Capitol during the attack.
Marilyn Monroe in blue jeans
NBC News first reported that Kennedy’s campaign hired Zach Henry’s firm, Total Virality, for “influencer engagement” in March. Henry had worked as deputy communications director for Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign, as well as for Blake Masters during his Senate run in Arizona.
Henry, as NBC News reported, had posted that Jan. 6 was “no MAGA insurrection Just more Democrat misdirection” and appears to have embraced conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack, including posting that “antifa” was behind it, which is false.
But photos and videos uncovered by NBC News and online “sedition hunters,” who have aided the FBI in hundreds of cases against Capitol rioters, appear to show Henry among the mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, beyond the previously established police lines, although it is unclear whether any of the barricades and “restricted” signs remained by the time he arrived.
There is no indication that Henry entered the Capitol or that he engaged in assaults on police officers or in destruction of property. Federal prosecutors have almost entirely focused their resources on Jan. 6 participants who either went inside the building or committed violence or destruction outside it, so there is little chance that Henry would be charged; the few nonviolent Jan. 6 defendants who were charged solely for going on restricted Capitol grounds were generally charged with misdemeanors.
But Henry’s presence on Capitol grounds would be significant given his previous social media posts about Jan. 6 and his new position on Kennedy’s campaign as Kennedy runs for president as an independent against former President Donald Trump.
That’s it for me today. What stories have you been following?
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Trump’s theatrics intensified over the weekend. He was photographed at a car race with his entourage in tow. His co-conspirator and personal Valet is now carrying a large briefcase. Got me thinking what was inside… John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Just when I think that Donald’s supporters can’t be any more idiotic, the groupthink leads them to some next-level crazy. Their latest efforts are wearing adult diapers outside their jeans and touting the masculinity of diaper-wearing by adult men. Seriously, who thought this up? Well, here’s one explanation by FirstPost explainers. “Oh, S**t! Why are Trump’s supporters wearing nappies to rallies?”
After Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen nicknamed him ‘Von ShitzInPantz’, the Republican candidate’s supporters are making diapers great again…or at least trying to. They are thronging rallies wearing nappies; some are donning T-shirts and holding placards with slogans like ‘Real Men Wear Diapers’ and ‘Diapers over Dems’
Just when you think US presidential elections can’t get more bizarre, they throw up a surprise. Donald Trump’s supporters do not disappoint. They are showing up at his rallies wearing nappies and shirts that read “Real Man Wear Diapers”.
But why?
Trump supporters, aka MAGAs, are responding to recent developments in the former president’s hush money trial case, where his lawyer Todd Blanche read out a string of offensive posts by his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen in the courtroom.
It’s not exactly on the same level as turning “Let’s Go Brandon” into Dark Brandon, is it? SkyNews reports that “Donald Trump supporters have started wearing nappies. They also have a new slogan: Real Men Wear Diapers.” Something tells me that not one of these folks was ever the cool kid or the nerdy kid in school.
The peculiar new craze began after Mr Trump was described as “Von ShitzInPantz”.
Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, said in a post on X last month: “Hey Von ShitzInPantz…your attacks of me stink of desperation. We are all hoping that you take the stand in your defence.”
He added, a couple of days later: “Oh… Von ShitzInPantz. Keep whining, crying and violating the gag order you petulant defendant!”
On Tuesday, he was fined $9,000 (£7,100) and held in contempt by the judge for breaches of the same order.
But Mr Trump’s defence lawyer, Todd Blanche, said his client was the victim of attacks by both Mr Cohen and the media.
Mr Blanche also referred to comments from President Joe Biden, referring to Donald Trump experiencing “stormy weather”.
Since then, Trump supporters have apparently been trying to get back at Mr Cohen by wearing nappies and declaring that “real men” do the same.
If this is the best they can do to “own the libs,” then count me ROFLMAO. Can you imagine what that kid in the red shirt would do if his mom made him do it for any other reason? There are so many conspiracy theories out there that you just wonder if there’s a movement to drop Republican babies repeatedly on their heads. This article from Salon is just eye-opening. “Who believes the most “taboo” conspiracy theories? It might not be who you think. White men with graduate degrees, a new study finds, are highly likely to hold especially noxious beliefs.” Paul Rosenburg is the writer and provides some insight into the study.
Like Henry Ford before him, Elon Musk has emerged as America’s top conspiracy spreader. But he’s hardly alone. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the conspiracy-theory candidate for president, and as Paul Krugman observed last summer, was attracting “support from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley”:
Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter, has endorsed him, while some other prominent tech figures have been holding fund-raisers on his behalf. Elon Musk, who is in the process of destroying what Dorsey built, hosted him for a Twitter Spaces event.
Krugman didn’t focus on conspiracy theory as such but on something closely related: distrust of experts and skepticism about widely accepted facts. He described this tendency as the “brain rotting drug” of reflexive contrarianism, quoting economist Adam Ozimek.
That wasn’t exactly scientific, but a new paper entitled “The Status Foundations of Conspiracy Beliefs” by Saverio Roscigno, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine, is. Its most eye-catching finding is the discovery of “a cluster of graduate-degree-holding white men who display a penchant for conspiracy beliefs” that are “distinctively taboo.”
Specifically, Roscigno writes, “approximately a quarter of those who hold a graduate degree agree or strongly agree” that school shootings like those at Sandy Hook and Parkland “are false flag attacks perpetrated by the government,” which is “around twice the rate of those without graduate degrees.” Results are similar for the proposition that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust “has been exaggerated on purpose.”
These findings are striking for many reasons. Most obviously, they go against the common belief — long supported by research — that conspiracist beliefs are more common among lower-income and less-educated individuals. They also challenge the formulation popularized by Joseph Uscinski that “conspiracy theories are for losers,” and should be understood as “alarm systems and coping mechanisms to help deal with foreign threat and domestic power centers” that “tend to resonate when groups are suffering from loss, weakness, or disunity.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) emphasized the stakes of the 2024 election in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, warning that much more than abortion rights are at risk if former President Trump gets a second term.
He told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell that reproductive freedom will be an “incredibly significant” issue in the race.
“And the extreme MAGA Republicans have set in motion the erosion of reproductive freedom,” he said. “We’re gonna fight for it with everything that we’ve got at our disposal.”
“If Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall,” he continued. “Social Security can fall. Medicare can fall. Voting rights can fall. And God help us all, but democracy itself can fall. If Roe v. Wade can fall, then anything can fall.”
Jeffries’ comments come as Democrats turn their sights on battleground states focusing on abortion rights arguments, as Arizona, Florida, Montana and others prepare for abortion rights ballot issues.
GOP state lawmakers in Arizona overturned a Civil War-era abortion restriction last week after multiple attempts and mass criticism from Democrats, while another strict abortion law went into effect in Florida on Wednesday.
But Jeffries also said that Democrats need to run on a positive message, in addition to warning about what Republicans could take away. He pointed to the gun safety regulation and investments in manufacturing as the “real results.”
However, most Americans still perceive the Biden economy as weaker than the economy under President Trump, according to polls, as the Biden campaign struggles to change the narrative.
The biggest problem is that many Americans believe completely untrue things. That last sentence shows just one. Here’s another lie that Donald spins constantly.
"…crime in the United States has dramatically decreased — 73 percent, to be precise — over the last thirty years. 2023 saw the biggest national drop in murder rates ever recorded…"
— Portia ♍️ McGonagal Same On 🐳 (@PortiaMcGonagal) May 6, 2024
Given that crime is a staple element of tabloid news, coverage of local tragedies, rather than seeming to occur at a distance, brings the specter of mayhem into communities that experience little or no crime. As Gideon Taffe of Media Matters reported in January 2023, Fox produced “a misleading narrative” about the United States being in the grip of a crime wave in 2022, devoted 11 percent of its reporting to the topic in advance of the midterm election. But that crime wave was “largely created by its own relentless coverage,” Taffe writes. “By focusing on racist stereotypes, smearing progressive prosecutors and pushing conspiracy theories, Fox made crime one of the biggest perceived ailments in the country and pushed far-right policy prescriptions ahead of the election.
The only sane policy responses, Fox hosts proclaimed, were those embraced by the Party of Trump. And these “draconian solutions” meant a return to policies forcibly ended in the courts as civil rights violations:
”Fox personalities began arguing for a return to “Broken Windows” policing, which involves aggressive enforcement and harsher sentences for lower level crimes. In reality, there is no evidence that this strategy works as a deterrent to reduce crime, and other heavy-handed policing tactics based on the broken windows theory have been found to significantly discriminate against Black Americans and other minority groups.
But as Taffe also pointed out, crime in the United States has dramatically decreased — 73 percent, to be precise — over the last thirty years. 2023 saw the biggest national drop in murder rates ever recorded (6 percent) and murders in cities dropped 12 percent. Yes, there are periodic crime spikes. (There was one during the pandemic). But overall, the trend is towards less crime.
The Atlantic’s crime reporter, Jeff Asher, pointed out that less crime doesn’t mean no crime. Yet “declining murder does not mean there were not thousands upon thousands of these tragedies this year,” he wrote on his Substack:
Nor does it mean that there was an acceptable level of gun violence, even in places seeing rapid declines. It simply means that the overall trend was extraordinarily positive and should be recognized as such.Detroit is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1966 and Baltimore and St Louis are on pace for the fewest murders in each city in nearly a decade. Other cities that saw huge increases in murder between 2020 and 2022, like Milwaukee, New Orleans and Houston, are seeing sizable declines in 2023. There are still cities like Memphis and Washington, DC, that are seeing increasing murders in 2023, but those cities are especially notable because they are the outliers this year, not the norm.
A donor luncheon at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate over the weekend provided the former president a chance to size up his potential 2024 running mates, several of whom were in attendance, and to escalate attacks on prosecutors in his four criminal cases. On Monday, he is back in a New York courtroom as a trial continues in one of those cases. Trump has been charged with falsifying records to cover up paying hush money to an adult-film actress during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Two potential VEEP candidates are not doing well in the media spotlight. We all know now about poor Cricket’s demise at the hands of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Now, Tim Scott is looking worse all the time. This is from CNN. “‘A very chilling signal’: Ex-Trump DHS official reacts to Tim Scott’s answer about accepting election results
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), a potential vice presidential pick for Donald Trump, refused to commit to saying he would accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the US Department of Homeland Security, says it is part of Scott’s audition to be Trump’s running mate.
Both display a worrying lack of character, much like Trump supporters show few signs of higher brain function. It really gets to me after a while. Last night, some crazy drunk guy emptied two clips near a Bed and Breakfast catering to the gay community where there was a courtyard full of partiers. One of my neighbors found out that he was mad that his car broke down. It was less than a block from me. Thankfully, the police got him immediately, and no one was hurt. Two other shootings in the city were reported, but not this one. I’m waiting for the rationale behind this, even though none exists. Our governor and his legislature just removed all the civil rights gains we made in criminal law and policing here. We also are now a state that no longer requires permits for any kind of gun ownership.
I heard the first round while sitting here at my desk. I heard the second round of shots, and then there was the loud, short sound of a police siren. Temple, eager for her last walk, and I stuck our heads out the door and saw that there were at least 10 police cars but no SWAT van, EMS, or Coroner. The amazing number of blue lights made me tip-toe out of my gate and up to the bar on the corner. I had a nice conversation with the two guards at the abandoned navy base and found out as much as I could. I didn’t sleep well last night and am still slightly shaky as I write this. The number of shots that came from each clip was beyond imagination.
Among all the other things we need, like access to proper healthcare, criminal justice reform, respect for differences, and such, we really need sensible gun laws.
And, ah, the burden of whiteness!!
Assholes
CNN – Black voters won a big victory in Louisiana. Some White voters said it violated their ‘personal dignity’https://t.co/y8guTSXoHk
In the current phase of the dispute, a three-judge trial judge panel sided with a group of 12 self-described “non-African American” voters who alleged that their “personal dignity” had been injured because the new map with two Black-majority districts “racially stigmatizes,” “racially stereotypes” and “racially maligns” them.
Their lawsuit said that the congressional plan amounted “to the application of affirmative action in redistricting, unseen in previous racial gerrymandering” cases and violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
Last week, the two Trump-appointed judges in the majority rejected arguments from the state that the lawmakers had other reasons besides race for drawing the plan the way they did. The state had pointed to the desires by state lawmakers to protect certain congressional incumbents.
I hope your week goes well. Mine is starting off a bit weird. All hugs are appreciated!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again
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As Dakinikat wrote yesterday, the Trump hush money trial had a marquee witness yesterday in Hope Hicks, who was very close to Trump during the his 2016 campaign and his four years as “president.” A couple of reports/reactions:
Donald Trump’s former campaign press secretary and White House communications director Hope Hickstook the stand Friday, sitting feet away fromher former boss as she described the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape and the Trump White House response to stories about hush money payments.
Hicks was visibly nervous, and she mostly avoided eye contact with Trump while answering questions from prosecutors for more than two hours. When prosecutors finished with their questions and Trump’s attorney took the podium, Hicks began crying and appeared tobecomeoverwhelmed; she finished her testimony after a brief break.
Through Hicks’ testimony, prosecutors showed jurors the transcript of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that upended Trump’s campaign – and, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, fueled Trump’s concern about keeping Stormy Daniels quiet in the days before the November 2016 election….
After sitting in the witness box, Hicks looked visibly uncomfortable and quickly acknowledged as much when she began answering questions.
“I’m really nervous,” she said, adjusting herself and the microphone in front of her.
Trump often had a scowl on his face, occasionally looking at Hicks and frequently passing notes with his attorneys while watching the proceedings play out on the television above him. Hicks, for her part, looked nearly always at assistant district attorney Matthew Colangelo and the jury, not at the defendant’s table.
Much of Hicks’ testimony focused on her role on the Trump campaign in October 2016, just before Election Day. Prosecutors asked what happened when the “Access Hollywood” tape came out.
“The tape was damaging. This was a crisis,” Hicks said.
Tranquility, by Dora Hathazi Mendes
The aftermath of the tape then informed how the campaign responded when the Wall Street Journal reported on Karen McDougal’s deal with American Media, Inc. not to speak about an alleged affair as part of a $150,000 agreement
In the report, which also mentioned Daniels, Hicks, then a Trump campaign spokesperson, denied that Trump had had affairs with either woman.
Hicks was asked about her conversations with Trump as well as Michael Cohen when reporters came to her for comment.
“What I told to the Wall Street Journal is what was told to me,” Hicks said of the denial she gave about the Daniels allegations.
When cross-examining Hicks, Trump attorney Emil Bove elicited testimony that Trump was also concerned about what his wife would think. Trump asked for the newspapers not to be delivered to his residence the day the story published, Hicks testified.
“I don’t think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed by anything that was happening on the campaign trial. He wanted them to be proud of him,” Hicks said.
Hicks discussed her key role in meetings and made clear that she “reported to Mr. Trump,” who, she said, closely managed his communications strategy. Multiple news outlets, including The New York Times, reported that Hicks said she was “very concerned” about the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by their genitals. The audio clip was published in October — a month before the election.
“I was concerned,” Hicks said Friday. “Very concerned. Yeah. I was concerned about the contents of the email, I was concerned about the lack of time to respond, I was concerned that we had a transcript but not a tape. There was a lot at play.”
Trump’s defense, meanwhile, used their cross examination to ask Hicks questions about Cohen’s informal role with the campaign and Trump’s concern about his wife Melania’s reaction to the “Access Hollywood” tape.
“He liked to call himself a fixer, or Mr. Fix-it, and it was only because he first broke it,” Hicks said, according to The Times. Hicks also said of Cohen: “He would try to insert himself at certain moments.” [….]
New York prosecutors have cited text messages, witness testimony, phone calls and other records to allege that Trump schemed to pay off adult film star and director Stormy Daniels, model Karen McDougal as well as a doorman who falsely claimed Trump had an affair with a housekeeper. The scheme allegedly involved a $130,000 payment to Daniels described as “legal expenses” in Trump Organization records. Bragg said the scheme “mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the reimbursements” for that payment.
According to The Times, prosecutors asked Hicks if Cohen would have paid Daniels without alerting Trump. Hicks said that would have been out of character for Cohen.
Prosecutors on Friday asked Hicks about an email she wrote saying “Deny, deny, deny” concerning the Washington Post’s email seeking comment about the Access Hollywood tape. She described that reaction as a “reflex.” She also said the campaign was concerned about a Wall Street Journal article about McDougal.
“One of the defining characteristics of Hope Hicks, both in the campaign and in her time in the White House, was that Mr. Trump wanted to have her in the room as often as possible,” Hofstra University constitutional law professor James Sample said. “Hope Hicks is a witness who will heighten the connection between what the jury has already heard and the prosecutors need to establish that part of the reason for these deals was to influence the election.”
Charges have formally been made public against Mark Meadows, the onetime chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, in the expansive fake electors case now underway in Arizona.
Trump is not charged in Arizona but is considered an unindicted co-conspirator.
As Law&Crime recently reported, 18 fake electors in the state were indicted by a grand jury on April 24 for their alleged efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election. Though several Republicans were named directly in the fraud and forgery indictment including, among others, leaders of the state’s Republican party and two incumbent state lawmakers, some of those charged had their identities redacted, including Meadows and Trump’s former attorney also facing indictment in Georgia, Rudy Giuliani.
Formal charges have still not been confirmed for Giuliani in Arizona.
The Associated Press reported first on Wednesday that the state’s attorney’s general office confirmed Meadows was being charged with nine felony counts and has been served.
An attorney for Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment to Law&Crime on Friday.
Those charged with trying to pass off bogus elector slates in 2020 and named openly when the indictment first went public included Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward, her husband Michael Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jacob Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James Lamon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, and Gregory Safsten.
BF Borgers, the independent accounting firm for Trump Media & Technology Group, is facing allegations of “massive fraud” from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which on Friday claimed the auditor ran a “sham audit mill” that put investors at risk.
Henriette Ronner-Knip, Cat Nap
The SEC said Borgers has been shut down, noting that the company agreed to a permanent suspension from appearing and practicing before the agency as accountants. The suspension is effective immediately. Additionally, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million civil penalty, while owner Benjamin Borgers will pay a $2 million civil penalty.
Neither the SEC statement nor its complaint mentioned Trump Media & Technology Group. Borgers didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In an email, Trump Media said it “looks forward to working with new auditing partners in accordance with today’s SEC order.”
The SEC charged Borgers with “deliberate and systemic failures” in complying with accounting standards in 1,500 SEC filings from January 2021 through June 2023, a period during which Borgers had about 350 clients. Trump Media’s March debut as a public company came after that time period, but the social media company said in its 2023 annual report that it had worked with Borgers prior to going public on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
There could be some progress in the Israel-Hamas cease fire talks, but there are still substantive disagreements. Both Haaretz reports that Hamas has agreed to the current proposal, but only if Israel withdraws from Gaza. Of course Netanyahu won’t agree to that.
Efforts have intensified to secure a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, with talks resuming in Cairo on Saturday.
Hamas said its delegation was travelling in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest truce proposal.
“We are determined to secure an agreement in a way that fulfils Palestinians’ demands,” it said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “taking the ceasefire should be a no-brainer” for the militant group.
Hamas’s negotiators have returned to the Egyptian capital to resume long-running talks – brokered by Egypt and Qatar – that would temporarily pause Israel’s offensive in Gaza in return for freeing hostages.
In a statement released last night, Hamas said it wanted to “mature” the agreement on the table, which suggests there are areas where the two sides still disagree.
The main issue appears to involve whether the ceasefire deal would be permanent or temporary.
Hamas is insisting any deal makes a specific commitment towards an end to the war, but Israel is reluctant to agree while the group remains active in Gaza. It’s thought the wording being discussed involves a 40-day pause in fighting while hostages are released, and the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted there will be a fresh military ground operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, even if a deal is agreed. Israeli media reported on Saturday that his position remained unchanged despite the latest round of talks.
But the US – Israel’s biggest diplomatic and military ally – is reluctant to back a new offensive that could cause significant civilian casualties, and has insisted on seeing a plan to protect displaced Palestinians first. An estimated 1.4 million people have taken shelter in Rafah after fleeing the fighting in the northern and central areas of the strip.
I certainly hope so. IMHO, Biden should cut off weapons support to Israel unless they start paying attention to his recommendations.
Scores of lawmakers from U.S. President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party told him on Friday that they believe there is sufficient evidence to show that Israel has violated U.S. law by restricting humanitarian aid flows into war-stricken Gaza.
A letter to Biden signed by 86 House of Representatives Democrats said Israel’s aid restrictions “call into question” its assurances that it was complying with a U.S. Foreign Assistance Act provision requiring recipients of U.S.-funded arms to uphold international humanitarian law and allow free flows of U.S. assistance.
The White Cat, Franz Marc
Such written assurances were mandated by a national security memorandum that Biden issued in February after Democratic lawmakers began questioning if Israel was upholding international law in its Gaza operations.
The lawmakers said the Israeli government had resisted repeated U.S. requests to open enough sea and land routes for aid to Gaza, and cited reports that it failed to allow in enough food to avert famine, enforced “arbitrary restrictions” on aid and imposed an inspection system that impeded supplies.
“We expect the administration to ensure (Israel’s) compliance with existing law and to take all conceivable steps to prevent further humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” the lawmakers wrote.
Biden’s memorandum requires that Secretary of State Antony Blinken report to Congress by Wednesday on whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of U.S. arms adheres to international law.
At least four State Department bureaus advised Blinken last month that they found Israel’s assurances “neither credible nor reliable.”
The Democratic convention is in Chicago this year, and it’s looking like we could see a repeat of 1968, when Mayor Daley unleashed his storm troopers on Vietnam war protesters as the whole world watched. That ended with Richard Nixon finally getting into the White House. This year the results could be even worse.
As protests over the Israel-Gaza war sweep college campuses, pro-Palestinian activists are ramping up plans for a major show of force at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, increasingly worrying Democrats who fear the demonstrations could interfere with or overshadow their efforts to project unity ahead of the November election.
If unruly protests unfold during the four days of the convention on Aug. 19-22 — especially if they feature inflammatory rhetoric, property damage or police intervention — they could strike at the heart of the Democratic message that President Biden represents competent and stable leadership, while presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is an agent of chaos and confusion.
William Daley, a native Chicagoan who co-chaired the 1996 Democratic convention in the city and later served as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, said he has heard more angst in recent days from fellow Democrats about the scenes that might unfold at this year’s party gathering. The convention, with more than 4,500 delegates set to formally nominate Biden for president, will serve as a starting gun for the final sprint to Election Day on Nov. 5.
“This last week has taken the demonstrations to a different level,” Daley said. “It portends that you have the potential for big demonstrations. Whether they get violent — that’s more imaginable today than it was a year ago.”
Still, Daley, who attended the 1968 convention in Chicago with his father, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley, strenuously pushed back against comparisons to that notoriously violent event, saying the country is not facing the same kind of angry, anarchic violence. In 1968, the streets of Chicago were engulfed in riots and bloodshed, prompting the activation of the National Guard, as the convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey just months after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
“To analogize what’s going on in the country today with 1968 is ridiculous,” Daley said. “Only people who weren’t alive in ’68 have that idiotic perception.”
He’s right about that, but there are lot of people now who don’t remember 1968. Of course in those days, college students actually had skin in the game–they were in danger of being drafted and sent to Vietnam.
I’ll end with some Abortion rights stories. There is good news and bad news.
Two more states with near-total abortion bans are poised to have citizen-sponsored measures on the ballot this year that would allow voters to reverse those bans by establishing a right to abortion in their state constitutions.
Sleeping Cat, by Kawanabe Kyosai
On Friday, a coalition of abortion rights groups in Missouri turned in 380,159 signatures to put the amendment on the ballot, more than double the 172,000 signatures required by law. The Missouri organizers’ announcement followed a petition drive in South Dakota that announced on Wednesday that it, too, had turned in many more signatures than required for a ballot amendment there.
Both groups are hoping to build on the momentum of other states where abortion rights supporters have prevailed in seven out of seven ballot measures in the two years since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had established a constitutional right to abortion for nearly five decades.
Groups in about 10 other states have secured spots on the ballot for abortion rights measures or are collecting signatures to do so. Those include Arizona and Nevada, swing states where Democrats are hoping that voters who are newly energized around abortion rights will help President Biden win re-election.
Florida’s six-week abortion ban officially went into effect this week. But another bill also intended to lower the number of abortions could soon quietly become law as well.
An expansion of Florida’s “Safe Haven” policy — which decriminalizes surrendering unwanted infants, as long as they are given up to specific agencies like hospitals, fire stations and EMS services — faces just one more hurdle to becoming law. It has long been a piece of legislation in the toolbox of anti-abortion supporters who view legal infant surrenders as a way to encourage more women to carry their pregnancies to term.
The bill’s fate still hangs in the balance, because it has yet to be sent to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk by legislative leaders. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the bill, but a sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Mike Beltran, said he doesn’t anticipate a veto.
But unlike many proposals considered alongside outright abortion bans — like “fetal personhood” or funding decisions — the Safe Haven bill in Florida attracted bipartisan support during the legislative session earlier this year. It’s found success with anti-abortion lawmakers supporting it in hopes of further reducing abortions, and with frustrated pro-abortion rights lawmakers who view it as a triage to help a desperate person with no other options.
“This was a way of doing something that was pro-life without making the left agitated,” Beltran, a Republican from Apollo Beach, said in an interview. “It was a good way to find common ground on the life issue when options were more limited.”
State law currently allows for a surrender up to 7 days after the child was born. This bill would more than quadruple the amount of time to 30 days and also authorize 911 responders to arrange an infant drop-off location in case the child’s guardian has no transportation to an agency’s site.
You’d have to be insane or just plain evil to believe that it would be less painful to dump a baby in a box at the fire department than to have an abortion early in a pregnancy.
As soon as Collin Davis found out his ex-partner was planning to travel to Colorado to have an abortion in late February, the Texas man retained a high-powered antiabortion attorney — who court records show immediately issued a legal threat.
Young Cat Sleeping, by Mabel Wellington Jack
If the woman proceeded with the abortion, even in a state where the procedure remains legal, Davis would seek a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abortion and “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child,” the lawyer wrote in a letter, according to records.
Now, Davis has disclosed his former partner’s abortion to a state district court in Texas, asking for the power to investigate what his lawyer characterizes as potentially illegal activity in a state where almost all abortions are banned.
The previously unreported petition was submitted under an unusual legal mechanism often used in Texas to investigate suspected illegal actions before a lawsuit is filed. The petition claims Davis could sue either under the state’s wrongful-death statute or the novel Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 that allows private citizens to file suit against anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion.
The decision to target an abortion that occurred outside of Texas represents a potential new strategy by antiabortion activists to achieve a goal many in the movement have been working toward since Roe v. Wade was overturned: stopping women from traveling out of state to end their pregnancies. Crossing state lines for abortion care remains legal nationwide.
The case also illustrates the role that men who disapprove of their partners’ decisions could play in surfacing future cases that may violate abortion bans — either by filing their own civil lawsuits or by reporting the abortions to law enforcement.
Sickening.
That’s it for me today. Have a great weekend, Sky Dancers!!
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Former Trump assistant Hope Hicks was called today by the prosecution as its ninth witness. Her testimony will likely be important. She also did not want to testify and is credible. News from the folks inside the courtroom state that Donald is glaring at her. Her first words into the mic were “I’m really nervous.”
Another week, another contempt-of-court hearing for former President Donald Trump — and this one was a doozy.
On Thursday morning, prosecutors at Trump’s Manhattan hush-money trial argued that he violated his gag order last week when he made four on-camera statements attacking witnesses and the jury.
Things got weird when his defense attorney Todd Blanche complained that Trump must remain silent about witnesses and jurors while his opponents get to say “anything they want.”
That’s when President Joe Biden and Donald “Von ShitzInPants” made their bizarre cameo appearances on the official trial record.
“Donald has had a few tough days lately. You might call it stormy weather,” Biden quipped in a very apparent reference to Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the center of the hush-money trial.
“President Trump can’t respond to that” by criticizing Daniels, Blanche said Thursday to the judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Likewise, Trump’s personal attorney turned nemesis, Michael Cohen, can take whatever potshot he chooses, Blanche told the judge.
But Trump must remain silent, Blanche added, even when Cohen mocks him as Donald “Von ShitzInPantz,” a favorite insult on Cohen’s podcast and his account on the social-media site X.
Blanche proceeded to read that colorfully worded, offending post into the record as Trump sat listening at the defense table.
“This one says, oh my, ShitzInPantz,” Blanche recited as he entered a screenshot of the post into the court record as Exhibit 64 — without any objection from prosecutors.
The official court stenographer duly followed along, typing the phrase into the court record as “shits in pants.”
I’m going to skip to the next part but you really should read the entire article. It’s just more surreality that surrounds Donald. Donald can dish it out but cannot take it.
The judge showed skepticism toward Blanche’s argument that Trump “can’t say anything.”
“You’re saying he can’t respond to what President Biden said?” the judge asked Blanche at one point, his voice sounding incredulous.
“There’s nothing in the gag order that says he can’t,” the judge told Trump’s lawyer.
But the judge also appeared sympathetic to Blanche’s complaints that Cohen and Daniels enjoyed the protection of a gag order while having carte blanche to attack Trump — and continue to do so.
“They’re not defendants in this case,” Merchan said. “I can’t extend a gag order to them. I just don’t have the authority.”
Merchan can, however, remove Cohen from the gag order’s protection, something the judge suggested last week he would consider.
“They’re all similar,” Blanche said of Cohen’s relentless jabs at Trump. “They’re over the top about his character, about his candidacy.”
The lawyer added of Cohen: “This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order.”
When a lawyer who is presenting a case at trial bumps into a colleague outside of court, a common question is, “How’s the case coming in?” This query reflects that planning a trial is one thing — but how well the evidence, especially testimony given by the witnesses, actually “comes in” before the judge and jury is another.
In Donald Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, the case is coming in better than expected, and that is ominous for the former president.
Although Davidson is just a supporting actor in this drama, his role innegotiating the alleged payment to Daniels makes him an important witness to lay down the basic facts of the alleged “catch and kill” plot — and to corroborate the details that former American Media, Inc. CEO and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker established and Cohen will ultimately testify about.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment of Davidson’s morning testimony came when he was asked about an election night 2016 text message exchange with Dylan Howard —aformer editor of the National Enquirer who helped broker the negotiations for the story. The prosecution asked Davidson to explain the meaning of a text he had sent to Howard that evening. As the election was about to be called for Trump, Davidson sent a text to Howard asking, “What have we done?”
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Davidson what the meaning of those words were. He answered that it meant “our efforts may have in some way — strike that — our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”
When Davidson said those words, the normal hush of the courtroom was suddenly punctuated by the audible clattering of the keyboards of more than 60 journalists seated in the pew-like benches. Why? After all, prosecutors need not prove the alleged secret payment to Daniels actually swung the election, and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said as much in the DA’s opening statement: “We will never know.”
Hope Hicks says she reported to Donald Trump directly in her role as press secretary during his campaign.
Asked how often she would speak to Trump during the campaign, Hicks says she spoke with Trump every day by telephone and in person.
The prosecution asked how involved Trump was involved in the media responses during his campaign. Hicks replies: “Very involved”. Asked how involved he was in the overall messaging during the campaign, Trump said:
“Mr Trump was responsible for it. He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it and we were all just following his lead. He deserves the credit.”
Here’s a discussion between Eissen and CNN reporter Paula Newton
Hope Hicks was a critical witness when we investigated Trump's alleged election interference in his first impeachment
& DA Bragg's team is about to ask her the same questions I did then
If you want to read a blow-by-blow of the questions and testimony follow Inner City Press.
Hicks: Mr. Trump said it might be Pulitzer Prize worthy. Then there was the story about Ted Cruz' father and Lee Harvey Oswald. Prosecutor: Did you become aware of the Access Hollywood tape? Hicks: I got an email from the Washington Post. I was on the 14th floor
I’m sure more will be out this afternoon. I’ll try to keep posting down the thread.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
I was in a street car yesterday trying to get home when Mick and the guys rolled towards the JazzFest up the tracks going the other directions with NOPD motorcycles and a long line of limos and black SUVs. I used to live to work sound at the fest but it’s just gotten out of hand. I don’t even go anymore. But here’s a treat with a cute anecdote reported by a friend of mine. Our new governor is worse than DeSantis and Abbott and probably the Puppy Murderer too.
The fun thing about their performance they brought out New Orleans musicians to perform with them. Their first hit, Time is on My Side, was first performed by New Orleans’s own Irma Thomas. Watch and listen!
#JazzFest headliner The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, who called out Louisiana's new governor Jeff Landry for wanting to "take us back to the stone age." Landry was there, so the zing landed. pic.twitter.com/g094oVZ8Ia
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.
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. 
If this is the best they can do to “own the libs,” then count me ROFLMAO. Can you imagine what that kid in the red shirt would do if his mom made him do it for any other reason? There are so many conspiracy theories out there that you just wonder if there’s a movement to drop Republican babies repeatedly on their heads. This article from 
How can Jeffries and others get through the roar of Donald and Fox News(sic) lies? Trump spent the weekend in Florida fundraising and propping up his propaganda machine while moaning about the unbearable whiteness of being. 
According to The 
I’m going to skip to the next part but you really should read the entire article. It’s just more surreality that surrounds Donald. Donald can dish it out but cannot take it.
The Judge has not announced his decision on the gag violation orders in front of him today. Norman Eisen’s take on the substance of yesterday’s hearing is an important read at CNN today. 
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