Frantic Friday Reads: Tales of the Strange and Deranged

Posted: April 19, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

“Wake up call Sleepy Don”. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I thought I’d spend most of today’s post covering the antics and jury selection process in Trump’s Hush Money Case. However, there are also a lot of awful things coming out of the block of MAGA states down here on the Gulf Coast. Louisiana has joined the backwards-in-time parade, and it’s looking like we may soon be worthy of a Dickens novel.  Texas continues to prove that its women are chattel. But let’s start with The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump. Today is the 4th day, and things are just weird.

First, we found out today that Donald has a babysitter who is paid $105k annually. She’s been sitting in court with a wireless printer, printing stories that will make him more optimistic and upbeat. She was sitting close to him, but the Judge made her move to the back. So, he wears diapers, takes naps, and has a nanny.  I wonder if she’s solved his ketchup tantrums yet.  I firmly believe a jury of his peers would likely be found in the toddler section of daycare.

Last night, the Judge’s fears of juror intimidation became real as Fox News broadcasted the workplace of the nurse that had been selected to serve earlier this week. The big complaint about her was that she had a master’s and lived on the east side with her boyfriend. That supposedly made her likely to be a liberal activist.  This is from The Daily Beast. “Jesse Watters Goes Juror by Juror to Sow Doubt in Trump Hush-Money Case. “I think at this point we can say: It’s not going to be an acquittal,” the Fox host reacted mere hours after seven jurors were selected.” This is reported by William Vaillancourt. The bottom line is that Fox News continues to be the flagship of the insurrection.

It didn’t take long after the general outlines of seven jurors in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial were made public Tuesday for Fox News host Jesse Watters to suggest that, based on that information alone, Trump wouldn’t be acquitted.

While on air Tuesday night, Watters went through each juror, whose identities will remain anonymous in light of the potential for threats directed at them.

The second juror, Watters described, is “a nurse from the Upper East Side with a Masters degree.”

“She’s not married, has no kids and lives with her fiancé who works in finance,” Watters said, chuckling for some reason. “She gets her news from The New York Times, Google and CNN.”

Two items in this juror’s questionnaire “really stuck out,” according to Watters: “‘I don’t really have an opinion of Trump,’ and ‘No one is above the law.’ I’m not so sure about juror No. 2,” Watters reacted, stopping short of explaining why. Watters later said vaguely that he found her to be “concerning.”

The Fox host then made a point to note that juror 3’s law firm “features DEI on its home page.” DEI, an acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion, has been a boogeyman for some on the right. Watters would make the same observation regarding the seventh juror, a lawyer whose firm, he claimed, “is big into DEI and ESG.” ESG, which relates to how companies score on environmental, social and governance metrics, has also been fodder for conservative criticisms.

“So that’s the jury of Trump’s peers so far,” Watters scoffed. “The fate of a billionaire real estate tycoon, TV celebrity-turned-45th president of the United States is in the hands of New York City lawyers, teachers and Disney workers who like to dance and get their news from the Times, but swear they can be impartial.”

When Watters introduced Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt, he began by blatantly sowing doubt over the jury pool.

The AP reported this last night after the Judge spoke to Ms Watters, who expressed concern when family and friends began to text her to ask if she was on the jury. “Judge in Trump case orders media not to report where potential jurors work.”

The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial ordered the media on Thursday not to report on where potential jurors have worked and to be careful about revealing information about those who will sit in judgment of the former president.

Judge Juan Merchan acted after one juror was dismissed when she expressed concerns about participating in the trial after details about her became publicly known.

The names of the jurors are supposed to be a secret, but the dismissed juror told Merchan she had friends, colleagues and family members contacting her to ask whether she was on the case. “I don’t believe at this point I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom,” she said.

Merchan then directed journalists present in the courthouse not to report it when potential jurors told the court their specific workplaces, past or present. That put journalists in the difficult position of not reporting something they heard in open court.

The jury has been seated with a replacement.  The last of the alternative jurors are being processed today. We could see opening arguments on Monday.

The most disturbing news of the week is coming from Republican Governors and legislatures who continue to push a White Nationalist Agenda.  We’ll get to the frightening examples in the news shortly.  I want to introduce the topic for those of you that we can mark safe from Republican Governors. Hence, you get an idea of the deranged laws becoming laws that are aimed at eliminating rights for the majority of people.  This is an Op-Ed by Jamelle Bouie in the New York Times today.

The U.A.W. is targeting 13 automakers — including Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, Volvo and Tesla — employing around 150,000 workers in 36 nonunion plants across the South. It faced the first major test of its strategy on Wednesday, when 4,300 workers at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., began voting on whether to unionize. The vote ends on Friday. If it’s successful, it will be a breakthrough for a labor movement that has struggled to build a footing in the South.

The mere potential for union success was so threatening that the day before the vote began, several of the Southern Republican governors announced their opposition to the U.A.W. campaign. “We the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the U.A.W. has brought into our states,” their joint statement reads. “As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”

It is no shock to see conservative Republicans opposing organized labor. But it is difficult to observe this particular struggle, taking place as it is in the South, without being reminded of the region’s entrenched hostility to unions — or any other institution or effort that might weaken the political and economic dominance of capital over the whole of Southern society.

The history of Southern political economy is to a great extent a history of the unbreakable addiction of Southern political and economic elites to no-wage and low-wage labor. Before the Civil War, of course, this meant slavery. And where the peculiar institution was most lucrative, an ideology grew from the soil of the cotton fields and rice paddies and sugar plantations, one that elevated human bondage as the only solid foundation of a stable society.

“In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina declared in an 1858 speech. “It constitutes the very mudsill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mudsill.”

A decade later and the slave system was dead, crushed underfoot by the armies of emancipation. The landowning Southern elites had lost their greatest asset — a seemingly inexhaustible supply of free labor. They would never regain it, but they would fight as hard as they could to approximate it.

With that, I give you the ClownFish of Lousiana’s latest workforce law.  “Louisiana lawmakers vote to remove lunch breaks for child workers, cut unemployment benefits. A House committee approved the bill along with others to reduce unemployment benefits and workers’ compensation wages.”  As BB said yesterday when I texted her this article,  this is positively Dickensian.

A Louisiana House committee voted Thursday to repeal a law requiring employers to give child workers lunch breaks and to cut unemployment benefits — part of a push by Republicans to remove constraints on employers and reduce aid for injured and unemployed workers.

The House Labor and Industrial Relations panel advanced the child labor legislation, House Bill 156, along with House Bill 119, which would slash the amount of time for which people can collect unemployment aid. A third bill the committee approved, House Bill 529, would change how workers’ compensation wages are calculated in ways that could reduce benefits received by some injured laborers.

The bills, which head to the full House, are part of a broad effort by Republicans to weaken labor unions and strengthen employers’ hands in Louisiana. They are aligned with steps other Republican-led legislatures have taken in recent years, and on Thursday, GOP lawmakers attributed the moves to Gov. Jeff Landry’s directive to “reform” the business environment and remove bureaucratic red tape.

First-term state Rep. Roger Wilder, R-Denham Springs, who sponsored the child labor measure and owns Smoothie King franchises across the Deep South, said he filed the bill in part because children want to work without having to take lunch breaks. He questioned why Louisiana has the requirement while other states where he owns Smoothie King locations, such as Mississippi, don’t have them, and criticized people who have questioned the bill’s purpose.

Evidently Louisiana Republicans do not want children to eat for some reason.  “The Breakdown: Summer meal options for kids, after Landry refuses EBT program.  In your Breakdown: what options are out there for summer meals for kids in need?”

Governor Jeff Landry just declined more than 70-million dollars in federal funding for the Summer EBT program. It’s a pandemic-era program that would have provided extra grocery money to the families of 600-thousand kids out of school for the summer.

Census data shows more than one in four Louisiana kids live in poverty.

And, Kentucky and Florida are now relaxing laws so that children work instead of going to school too.

The only thing these state Republicans accomplish is setting free Robber Barons to do the worst and making the lives of the rest of us intolerable. “Top employees at Louisiana environmental agency resign in clash with leader, an ex-Trump official. New top DEQ employees are resigning or transferring under Jeff Landry-appointed leader.”  They are also after a tenured professor who is an expert on Climate Change.

Four officials named to prominent positions at the state Department of Environmental Quality by Gov. Jeff Landry’s nascent administration have already left after clashing with Landry’s appointee to the agency’s top job, Aurelia Giacometto, according to interviews with senior aides and documents obtained by The Times-Picayune and The Advocate.

Senior officials who remain at the DEQ and who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal said the agency is also in turmoil over Giacometto’s insistence on pre-approving any contact made by employees with individuals in other state agencies, federal agencies, businesses and industries, and non-governmental organizations.

Giacometto’s actions may have caused delays in applying for and approval of federal grants worth millions of dollars, delayed routine inspections of numerous businesses for weeks, and may have violated employees’ rights to request leave under the federal Family Medical Leave Act, the aides said.

“During my two-week tenure, I witnessed numerous atrocities, with the most egregious being the harassment of longtime employees,” Chandra Pidgeon, who was undersecretary of the DEQ’s Office of Management and Finance, wrote in a March 1 resignation letter to Landry obtained by the news organization. Pidgeon did not respond to a request for comments on her letter.

Then, there’s Texas, again and Florida and North Carolina. “Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom.”  

One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.

The more you read about these states, the more frightening it gets.  Also, you should not think yourselves safe either because if they get back in control of the National agenda they will make these laws go national and there will be no reasonable Supreme Court to block them.   Think and vote local and encourage your friends and relatives to do the same.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

 

 

Mostly Monday Reads: Supreme Court Upends the Constitution, Again

Posted: April 15, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“So it begins, a proud moment in our history. Another trump first. MAGA.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m moving a little slow today. I woke up to Temple snuggled utterly beside me.  She usually sleeps down by my feet.  She stood up, looking like she was trying to assume the position, then darted off the bed. Fortunately, she got down there.  I spent the wee hours of the morning cleaning up the floor.  She seemed much better when we went for our morning walk, but dawn is always too early for me.  I’m used to lecturing and gigging at night.

I did check the phone.  BB had texted me this.  It totally changed my thoughts about what I share with you today.  Of course, I’d planned on covering one of the most historical trials in history, and we’ll get to that.  I’m not sure this excitement will start until after the jury is seated. However, it’s Trump, and who knows what the overgrown toddler will do. So, back to the matter at hand. This is from Vox’s Ian Millihiser. “The Supreme Court effectively abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states. It is no longer safe to organize a protest in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Texas.”

This is especially key down here.  #SCOTUS just decided that there is basically no right to protest in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi. Welcome to the first massive step to undoing democracy. That follows up well with what the Louisiana D’ohvenor just did. If you see a peaceful protest, and it’s in your way, just slam the pedal to the floor and run right over them. That crime is allowed, but if someone sabotages your protest by throwing a rock. All bets are off, and the organizers pay for all damage.  Here are just some of those headlines.  “Louisiana could outlaw protests near residences, despite First Amendment concerns.”  This was written just 5 days ago when there were First Amendment Concerns.  Then there is this. “New legislation aims to offer protection to drivers who hit protesters that are performing road-blocking maneuvers. “GOP politicians across the US are proposing increased penalties for demonstrators who run onto highways and legal immunity for drivers who hit them.”

Baton Rouge, 2016. Jonathan Bachman/Reuters. This evidently isn’t protected speech now. 

So, forced birth advocates can do whatever shenanigans they want and be protected by some warped take on religious freedom and freedom of speech.  The rest of us may be liable for things others did that take away our freedom and strip us of all our assets.  This is from Ian’s analysis.

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South.

For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016.

The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

Everyone agrees that this rock was not thrown by Mckesson, however. And the Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that protest leaders cannot be held liable for the violent actions of a protest participant, absent unusual circumstances that are not present in the Mckesson case — such as if Mckesson had “authorized, directed, or ratified” the decision to throw the rock.

Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in a brief opinion accompanying the Court’s decision not to hear Mckesson, the Court recently reaffirmed the strong First Amendment protections enjoyed by people like Mckesson in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). That decision held that the First Amendment “precludes punishment” for inciting violent action “unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder.”

The reason Claiborne protects protest organizers should be obvious. No one who organizes a mass event attended by thousands of people can possibly control the actions of all those attendees, regardless of whether the event is a political protest, a music concert, or the Super Bowl. So, if protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, no one in their right mind would ever organize a political protest again.

Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs during the March on Washington, 1963 [Source: Library of Congress]

The fact that the outcome may be temporary does not preclude a chilling effect on the historical importance of demonstrations in U.S. History.  Think about the Boston Tea Party or the March on Washington Dr. Martin Luther King led.  Amy Howe, writing for SCOTUSblog has this analysis. “Court declines to intervene in lawsuit against Black Lives Matter organizer.”

The case is one with which the justices were already familiar. In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowed the officer’s lawsuit to go forward. Mckesson then appealed to the Supreme Court, where he argued that the lawsuit against him was barred by the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., which limited the NAACP’s liability for a nonviolent protest that it organized.

In November 2020, the court sent the case back to the 5th Circuit with instructions to seek guidance from the Louisiana Supreme Court on whether state law would in fact allow Mckesson to be held liable.

After the Louisiana Supreme Court issued an opinion indicating that, under the facts alleged by the officer, a protest leader could be sued for negligence, a divided 5th Circuit issued a new opinion allowing the lawsuit to go forward. Doe had alleged, the majority wrote, that Mckesson had “organized and directed the protest in such a manner as to create an unreasonable risk that one protester would assault or batter” the officer.

Judge Don Willett dissented from the panel’s ruling. He agreed that Doe “deserves justice” and should be able to sue the person who actually injured him. But he rejected the idea that Doe can sue Mckesson, arguing that the theory on which the majority relied was “foreclosed — squarely — by the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.”

Mckesson returned to the Supreme Court last fall, asking the justices to weigh in. But after considering the case at seven consecutive conferences, the justices denied review.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a statement regarding the court’s decision to deny review. She noted that since the court of appeals issued its decision, the Supreme Court in Counterman v. Colorado “made clear that the First Amendment bars the use of an objective standard like negligence for punishing speech, and it read Claiborne and other incitement cases as demanding a showing of intent.” Because the Supreme Court may turn down cases “for many reasons,” Sotomayor stressed, the denial of review in Mckesson’s case “expresses no review about the merits of” his claim. Moreover, she added, the court of appeals should “give full and fair consideration to arguments regarding Counterman’s impact in any future proceedings in this case.”

Demonstrator at the Vietnam Moratorium, 1969 [Source: Library of Congress]

Evidently, the right-wing judges in the case fear protestors at their steps more than they truly believe in the intent of the Bill of Rights.  It also makes me wonder about the protests on January 6.  Does this mean that everyone there can be sued for the resulting damage?  I guess I’m just going to have to wait to hear the legal minds talk about it on the News tonight. They’re already on overtime given the start of the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Case today.

As with all Trump Trials, the days before the trial began, we had more Trumpertantrums.  This is from Nick Robertson writing for The Hill. “Trump rages at judge hours before hush money case begins.” 

Former President Trump railed against the judge in his criminal hush money case early Monday, just hours before the first criminal trial against a former U.S. president is set to begin.

Repeating complaints he has made for months, Trump argued that Judge Juan Merchan is corrupt and the charges against him are political in nature and baseless, and he dubbed the entire effort a “witch hunt.”

“The Radical Left Democrats are already cheating on the 2024 Presidential Election by bringing, or helping to bring, all of these bogus lawsuits against me, thereby forcing me to sit in courthouses, and spend money that could be used for campaigning, instead of being out in the field knocking Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the History of the United States,” he wrote in one early morning Truth Social post. “Election Interference!”

Trump’s criminal hush money trial will start jury selection Monday in Manhattan, where prosecutors claim the former president illegally covered up payments made to hide a previous affair during the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump also again denounced the gag order placed against him, which was expanded after he berated Merchan’s wife and daughter in prior social media posts.

“I want my VOICE back. This Crooked Judge has GAGGED me. Unconstitutional!” Trump wrote. “The other side can talk about me, but I am not allowed to talk about them! Rigged Trial!”

It is unclear if Trump will testify during the trial, though he is expected to attend it in person, including Monday’s session.

Sorry, dude, if you protest too much and damages result, you will have to pay for everything.  Ask your SCOTUS buddies.   The New York Times has live updates on its website today.

As the first criminal trial of an American president headed toward jury selection on Monday, the judge overseeing the case against Donald J. Trump once again declined to step aside, and prosecutors sought to punish the former president for possibly violating a gag order.

Before beginning the arduous process of choosing a jury for the landmark trial — on allegations that Mr. Trump falsified documents to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star — the judge announced his decision to remain on the case, rejecting Mr. Trump’s latest effort to oust him.

Michael Tomasky has this delightful headline at The New Republic. “We May Finally Get to Write: “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.” The former president’s lawlessness has dodged many an obstacle over the years, but he’s facing a new challenge now: a jury of his peers.”  Tomasky asks my favorite question, and I am paraphrasing.  How the fuck does Trump get away with all of this continually?

We’re finally here. This week, Donald Trump will sit in a courtroom and face criminal charges. The courtroom has not been kind to Trump this year: A Manhattan jury found the Trump Organization guilty on 17 counts of tax fraud last December, and E. Jean Carroll won that hefty judgment against Trump for sexual abuse, but these were civil proceedings. So mark this down as the week the criminal justice system finally managed to haul Trump before the bar of justice.

The only real question here is why this took so long. It’s not as if it wasn’t obvious in 2015 that Trump had total contempt for the law. That was easy for all to see. How has he gotten away with it for this long?

It’s partly due to an utterly docile Republican Party, whose leaders know very well that Trump’s a brigand but are afraid to say so. It’s partly Trump’s reliance on an old Roy Cohn legal strategy—delay, deny, accuse the other side of what you yourself have done, conjure up totally fictional defenses that should be laughed out of court but at least slow down the proceedings. And conservative judges have played their role, such as Aileen Cannon and the U.S. Supreme Court.

But crucially, this is also a media story—more precisely, it’s the story of our two medias, the mainstream and the right-wing. The mainstream media have consistently held Trump to a lower standard of behavior than other politicians, and the right-wing media have held him to no standard of behavior, making excuses for everything.

It’s so important to understand this phenomenon. We have two medias in this country. One wakes up every morning looking for a fight, and the other, with some exceptions, wakes up every morning looking for nuance and rationalizations. It’s a huge part of the story of how we got here.

Take this now completely forgotten tale from the very early days of the Trump administration. On January 24—Trump’s fourth day in office—then–national security adviser Mike Flynn was interviewed by the FBI about his Russia connections. On January 26 and 27, Sally Yates of the Justice Department told the White House about her department’s suspicions about Flynn.

That same night of January 27—the first week of his presidency—Trump had dinner with then–FBI director James Comey. The FBI was investigating Flynn. It was also, we learned shortly thereafter, investigating Trump’s 2016 campaign.

What was said at that dinner? We don’t know everything, but that May, Trump admitted that he asked Comey if he, Trump, was under investigation. The mere asking of the question, as Lawrence Tribe said at the time, was a high crime and misdemeanor—an attempt to intimidate and to obstruct justice.

That should have launched a congressional investigation at the very least. But the Republicans controlled the House at the time, so that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, then-Speaker Paul Ryan came out and called Comey compromised, backing Trump all the way.

And the media? Oh, it was a story all right, I wouldn’t deny that it was. But while I haven’t done a content analysis, I’d bet you that Bill Clinton’s tarmac visit with Loretta Lynch inspired more outrage in both medias than this episode did. Naturally, I’m not defending what Clinton did. But he was an ex-president with no power over Lynch. Trump was the sitting president will all power over Comey—which he exercised that May by firing him.

This is one of dozens of examples in which Trump flagrantly violated norms and standards. It made a little stink for a moment or two, but it eventually faded away, quietly departing the front pages, blending into the blurry background of half-remembered Trumpian lies and outrages that have proven to be too numerous for the media watchdogs to actually keep track of, leaving one feeling overwhelmed.

That’s why this week is different. This, finally, is a court of criminal law. There will be facts submitted for the record. There will be testimony, under oath. And eventually, in an estimated six weeks or so, there will be a verdict from a jury of Trump’s peers.

Let’s hope just does, in fact, prevail.  I’m not a lawyer, so I must listen to them. However, I should know about equities, as I’ve never seen anything like this before.

I have no words about this last move on DJT stock other than, what is wrong with NASDAQ and the people holding this stock?  It already has a negative P/E ratio, and you want to further decimate shareholder value?  At the very least, it’s unethical, but is this legal? This is from CNBC.  Kevin Breuninger has the analysis. “Trump Media shares plunge more than 15% after company files to issue additional DJT stock.”   This plan sounds fishy and appears based on allowing Trump to cash out when allowed.  The use of warrants here is legal but off.  People need to dump this stock quickly and learn a lesson or fifty.

Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 15% on Monday after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock.

Trump Media’s dramatic slide came as Donald Trump sat in a Manhattan courtroom for the start of his criminal trial on hush money-related charges. Trump is the majority stakeholder in the company.

Trump Media, which created the Truth Social app and trades under the stock ticker DJT on the Nasdaq, fell nearly 20% last week.

Since the company began public trading on March 26, its share price has fallen more than 62%, from an opening price of $70.90 that day down to around $27 on Monday.

As a result, its market capitalization has been slashed by nearly $6 billion, leaving it at around $3.7 billion as of Monday.

The company’s intent to issue more common stock was disclosed in a preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The shares cannot be issued until a registration statement with the SEC takes effect.

The filing describes a plan to offer more than 21.4 million shares of common stock, issuable “upon the exercise of warrants,” the filing shows. Stock warrants give their holder the ability to buy shares at a predetermined price within a certain time frame.

Trump Media predicted in the filing that it will receive “up to an aggregate of approximately $247.1 million from the exercise of the Warrants.”

The closing price of Trump Media’s warrants was $13.69 as of Friday, according to the filing. The warrants are being traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker “DJTWW.” That ticker was down more than 8% as of 11 a.m. ET.

The company also seeks to offer the resale of up to 146.1 million shares of stock from “selling securityholders,” 114.8 million of which are held by Trump himself. Trump owns 78.8 million shares of the company, and stands to obtain 36 million “earnout shares” if the stock stays above $17.50 for enough trading days.

Trump’s current stake in the company — nearly 60% of its shares — was worth more than $2.2 billion at Monday morning’s share price. Trump is not allowed to sell his shares until a six-month lockup period expires.

So, another week under the glare of the Orange Crashing Meteor.  Please let all of this end so we can return to being the country we should be.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: What’s a democracy to do?

Posted: April 12, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

“You know, when the jury is seated, Trump won’t be able to contain himself.” John Buss, @Repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

We’ve had incredibly stormy weather down here this week. Almost all the streets a few blocks downhill from me flooded, and Uptown became a surfing safari. Even City Hall was closed for the day. The winds were wild. A tornado severely damaged a small city on the North Shore close to the Mississippi Border. Fortunately, I had just bought groceries, and the electricity stayed on. It was a good week to just read a book in many ways. This weekend is the quiet before the next storm. It’s a named storm like many that go into the history books. It’s officially entitled “The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump.” We all know it as the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Case.

The first place to check to get the facts of the case as we know it is Forbes Magazine. Staff writer Alison Durkee has a bulleted timeline to highlight everything known to date. “Trump And Stormy Daniels: What To Know About Hush Money Saga That Led To Ex-President’s First Criminal Trial.”

Former President Donald Trump will go on trial in Manhattan next week as he faces felony charges for falsifying bank records—the first of his criminal cases to go to trial—which will mark the culmination of a yearslong saga stemming from his alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and a “hush money” payment made during his 2016 campaign to keep her quiet.

Kristal did not want to hear any news yesterday afternoon. I imagine a lot of us are Kristal.

This is a historical trial. He’s the first Former President to be criminally indicted. Trump faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the first degree. These charges carry a maximum sentence of 136 years if convicted on all counts. Since Trump is a criminal defendant on parole, he must attend court daily. Unless they can sedate him with tranquilizers that would stun an elephant, I doubt he can hold it together. You see, my friend John agrees with that assessment. The list of witnesses is trickling out through the media. This is from MSNBC.

NBC News obtained a list of potential witnesses for the prosecution in Trump’s hush money trial. The list includes Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, Michael Cohen, and Hope Hicks among other Trump associates.

Politico has a long story today about Michael Cohen and his testimony next week. “Michael Cohen on the Trump Trial: Prepare To Be Surprised. Trump’s former attorney on the hush money trial, how he’s preparing for life as the key witness and who he expects Trump will choose as a 2024 running mate.” Ryan Lizza interviewed Cohen, which is the central part of the article.

Trump’s defense is going to be to paint you as an untrustworthy witness. He’s going to cite your guilty plea for lying to Congress, and the fact that the Justice Department declined to offer you a cooperation deal because prosecutors thought you lied to them. And he’ll say you’re out for revenge and that you have a financial incentive to see him convicted. So how do you defend yourself from those accusations?

I wish that when people state that “you lied to Congress,” that you’d do me the courtesy — do yourself the courtesy — of finishing the sentence. What is the sentence? That I had done that, really, for the benefit of Donald J. Trump. And that lie centered around the number of times that I had stated that I spoke to Donald about the failed Trump Tower Moscow real estate project — in conjunction with other lawyers Jay Sekulow, Abbe Lowell, Ty Cobb, with other individuals like Alan Garten or Ivanka [Trump] and Jared [Kushner]. Everybody worked on that statement. I was just the fool who went ahead and read it into the record and submitted it. But what benefit did I have in terms of saying three times versus 10? That’s the lie: That I claimed to have spoken to Donald three times about the failed Trump Tower Moscow real estate project, when the true answer was 10.

I appreciate you putting it in context. With these other accusations, is that the way you approach it: You put those things in context for the jury so that they understand them, and what sounds like a dramatic allegation can be defanged?

Absolutely. There is a ton of misinformation, disinformation, malinformation that has been put out there by Trump and acolytes literally since the Steele dossier. We all know that the Steele dossier was completely inaccurate, as it related to me. I don’t even talk about any of the other allegations raised in that garbage document.

Hey, look what I found on the side of the street while walking Temple. You’d think gold spray paint and a Sharpie signature would last longer!

Can you imagine the energy in that courtroom when he takes the stand, and Trump has to just sit there? So, most of us know the basis of this story and have been pummeled by it for such a long time. I might as well go to that level since so many of these concerns are about killing tabloid stories. This is the first time I’ve seen someone get the dirt on Melania’s reaction to the allegations. This is from HuffPo. It’s reported by Ed Mazza. “Ex-Aide Reveals What ‘Humiliated’ Melania Trump Did After Stormy Daniels News. Stephanie Grisham also explained why the ex-president is probably “quite worried” about his wife right now.”

A former aide to Melania Trump said former President Donald Trump’s looming trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money case could be causing some stress in their marriage.

“I spent a ton of time with her when the news was breaking about Stormy Daniels,” Stephanie Grisham said on CNN on Wednesday. “And she didn’t take it lightly at all.”

Daniels claimed to have had an affair with Trump from 2006-2007, while Melania Trump was caring for the couple’s then-infant child. Grisham said separate allegations of an affair with Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal also led to tensions in the White House.

“We went to the State of the Union separately. She refused to walk out to Marine One with him because she didn’t want to be like Hillary Clinton and standing by her man,” said Grisham, who was chief of staff to the then-first lady before becoming White House press secretary under Donald Trump. “She’s a very independent and strong woman.”

She said she believed Melania Trump would “push” her husband to go on the witness stand during the hush money trial, which is set to begin next week, to defend himself in public.

“This is very, very embarrassing for her. It’s humiliating for her,” she said. “And I can guarantee you that she’s not happy right now and that he’s quite worried about that.”

You may watch the video here on CNN. Frankly, I just couldn’t get past the Botox lips. While this is all historical, sensational, and tacky, I still have this question. The analysis is also from Politico. It’s provided by James Romoser. “How Donald Trump Gets Special Treatment in the Legal System. The former president rails against a “two-tiered system of justice.” But he’s the one benefiting from it.” This is what my Inquiring Mind wants to know.

A firebrand politician named Donald is about to stand trial. Just a few days before jury selection, he goes on TV to slam the charges as baseless and biased.

“The FBI and the Justice Department,” he insists, have “targeted” their political opponents in a burst of partisan persecution.

The rhetoric sounds familiar, but this is not a story about Donald Trump. It’s about a man named Don Hill, a former Dallas City Council member who was facing bribery charges 15 years ago.

The telltale clue that this isn’t about Trump is what happened next: The judge, upset by the attempt to taint the jury pool, slapped the politician-turned-defendant with criminal contempt and ultimately sentenced him to 30 days in jail for violating a gag order.

Today, Trump routinely spouts invective far more inflammatory than anything Hill said. He denigrates prosecutors. He lies about his cases. He vilifies the judges overseeing them — and then vilifies their wives and daughters, too. Yet Trump has never faced the swift repercussions that were imposed on Hill — and are routinely imposed on other defendants in America.

Instead, Trump gets special treatment.

“I can’t imagine any other defendant posting on social media about a judge’s family and not being very quickly incarcerated,” said Russell Gold, a law professor at the University of Alabama.

As Trump prepares to begin his first criminal trial on Monday in New York, the tolerance of his tirades is perhaps the most glaring sign of the judicial system’s Trump exceptionalism. But it’s far from the only example. Over the past year, in ways large and small, in criminal cases and civil ones, Trump has consistently been given more freedom and more privileges than virtually any other defendant in his shoes.

Some judges in Trump’s cases may have afforded him unique leeway in hopes of avoiding any appearance that they are meddling in the 2024 campaign. Indeed, Trump’s role as a presidential candidate — one who is always eager to play the martyr — complicates the task of prosecutors and judges eager to lower the temperature of the proceedings. Penalizing Trump before he’s ever convicted of anything could stir a backlash and trigger more heat, not less.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

The central question to every discussion I have with anybody concerning Trump and his trial antics is, How The FUCK does this guy get away with it? The interesting analysis this week that Kristal avoided was the comparison between OJ Simpson’s epic trial and Trump’s endless trials. The answer is, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” It took me a while to determine the resounding difference between my black and white colleagues’ reactions to the trial verdict as we watched its announcement in our corporate lawyer’s office. It was, for once, the system did to a rich black guy (football star, football announcer, and movie star) what they always do for rich and famous white men. OJ had an excellent lawyer and the prosecutors weren’t up to the challenge.

The jury saw the opportunity to make a point. Johnny Cochrane was a well-paid and extremely brilliant lawyer who knew how to do his job. I can’t say Donald will have that exact representation. Kaitlin Collins at CNN has this story. “Trump attorney who became a crucial witness against him has departed legal team.” OJ eventually got caught doing more crimes and did time. Will one of these criminal suits put this asshole in jail please?

More from Romoser.

But even in the civil fraud case — which by all accounts was a devastating loss for Trump and his businesses — there were nonetheless signs of special deference. Justice Arthur Engoron, who oversaw the trial, was extraordinarily tolerant of Trump’s courtroom antics and outbursts. During a day of testimony in November, Trump essentially converted the witness box into a campaign stump — a privilege few other witnesses would receive.

Engoron ultimately issued the nearly half-billion-dollar penalty, and Trump seemed headed toward a financial crisis when he was unable to secure a bond to stave off the immediate enforcement of the verdict.

But after Trump complained to a New York appeals court, a panel of judges intervened with an unexpected 11th-hour reprieve, issuing a terse, unexplained order that sharply reduced the bond amount that Trump had to post while he appeals the verdict. The decision ensured that Trump wouldn’t have to start selling off assets and that James couldn’t start seizing them.

The American legal system is currently undergoing a Trump-induced stress test, one that will only intensify when Trump’s Manhattan trial begins on Monday.

Each day, during breaks in trial, he’ll stand in the hallway outside the courtroom and denounce the charges. He’ll continue to test the bounds of the gag order that the judge in the case, Justice Juan Merchan, recently imposed. He may even mutter “witch hunt” within earshot of jurors, as he’s done before.

Voters will be watching. So will the prosecutors in his other criminal cases — all of whom are trying, but so far failing, to bring him to trial before Election Day. Those prosecutors have left unsaid the reason why the timing matters so much, but everyone involved knows it: If Trump is elected president again, all pending criminal cases will stop in their tracks.

This is an extremely long article, but it is definitely worth reading. It capsulizes everything most of us have been wondering about these long Trump-filled years. One more Trump Trial note, and I’m off for the weekend. This is from The Daily Beast and reported by Jose Pagliery. “Trump Bond’s Cayman Connection ‘Stinks to High Heaven.’ The company that saved Donald Trump with a $175 million bank fraud bond is playing an insurance game that has experts questioning whether New York will ever see the money.”

When the questionably leveraged company that rescued Donald Trump with a last-minute $175 million court bond insured itself with its own parent company, it raised concerns about how the company was playing with its finances.

But now, as even more details come out about that parent company—particularly that it’s based in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven—the concerns are just piling up.

Former industry regulators and investigators told The Daily Beast that Knight Specialty Insurance Company being financially backed by a firm based in the Cayman Islands should raise eyebrows at the New York AG’s office—particularly because companies frequently organize in the Cayman Islands not just to avoid taxes, but also to minimize visibility into its business practices, avoid more stringent U.S. regulations, and make liability harder should things go wrong.

All of those concerns could come into play if the New York Attorney General has to chase the company down for the money Trump currently owes for committing bank fraud.

“This just stinks to high heaven,” said Dave Jones, who oversaw the nation’s largest insurance market as California’s insurance commissioner for seven years until 2018.

“Taken in its totality, this dog does not hunt. Along every step of the way, this purported bond is problematic. It’s just one issue after another that calls into question whether this bond could ever possibly satisfy the judgment,” said Jones, who’s now the director of the Climate Risk Initiative at University of California Berkeley.

Former regulators described a potential worst-case scenario: Trump loses his bank fraud case on appeal and refuses to pay, the insurance company can’t actually come up with the money, and the New York Attorney General runs into problems chasing after a second company that never explicitly promised to pay this particular court judgment—and is based in a little-regulated foreign jurisdiction in the Caribbean Sea.

“The risk here is the company will not have the liquidity to pay on the bond when demanded, and the beneficiary of this bond, the New York AG, may not have a direct claim against the reinsurer,” said former New York Department of Financial Services superintendent Maria Vullo. “That the reinsurer is in the Cayman Islands compounds this issue as it is a non-U.S. jurisdiction, which makes collection very difficult.”

These rich assholes usually do not come by their money with ethical businesses. So, why do we expect them to play by the book? Here’s another one that should be thrown in jail. “Leo rejects Senate subpoena from panel probing gifts to Supreme Court justices. The conservative judicial activist called the move ‘politically motivated,’ and the committee chair said Leo had left them ‘no other choice’ but to move forward with the compulsory process.” This is from Washington Post writer Tobi Raji.

The Senate Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena Thursday to conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo as part of a months-long inquiry into undisclosed gifts to Supreme Court justices and he promptly rejected it, calling the move “politically motivated.”

“I am not capitulating to his lawless support of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the left’s dark money effort to silence and cancel political opposition,” Leo said of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee’s chairman, in a statement to The Washington Post.

The committee voted along party lines on Nov. 30 to authorize subpoenas for Leo and Texas billionaire Harlan Crow following reports that Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomasand Samuel A. Alito Jr. accepted — and did not disclose — free luxury travel and gifts from Crow, Leo and conservative donor Robin Arkley II.

Crow did not receive a subpoena Thursday, his spokesman Michael Zona told The Post.

In a statement to The Post, Durbin said sending a subpoena to Leo was a necessary step.

“Since July 2023, Leonard Leo has responded to the legitimate oversight requests of the Senate Judiciary Committee with a blanket refusal to cooperate,” Durbin said. “His outright defiance left the Committee with no other choice but to move forward with compulsory process. For that reason, I have issued a subpoena to Mr. Leo.”

“Mr. Leo has played a central role in the ethics crisis plaguing the Supreme Court and, unlike the other recipients of information requests in this matter, he has done nothing but stonewall the Committee. This subpoena is a direct result of Mr. Leo’s own actions and choices,” Durbin continued.

First, they eliminate campaign finance law, and then the dark money warps the system. Welcome to the hell wrought by Leonard Leo and his Federalist Society buddies.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

And in Uptown New Orleans

Solar Eclipse Monday Reads: Will Donald look at the Sun Again?

Posted: April 8, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because, Solar Eclipse, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

It’s Eclipse Day! Be safe out there! John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s quite the day today! The country’s gone nuts over the Solar Eclipse, and it’s separated by nuts who think the Rapture is coming and nuts who are just plain enjoying their nerdy selves. Count me in the later number. Count Governor Hillbilly HuckaBuck in Arkansas as nutty with a lot of stupid on the side. “Gov. Sanders declares state of emergency ahead of eclipse.” This is from the NBC affiliate in Little Rock.

This reminds me of the approach to school here.  Jefferson Parish is sending their students home early.  New Orleans Parish says their students will use the opportunity to learn something.  Scalise is the Jefferson Parish Congress Critter, just to let you know where they stand.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency on Friday ahead of the solar eclipse, according to a news release.

Sanders said in the release that she released funds from the Response and Recovery Fund to help commercial carriers transport essentials to customers in the state during the eclipse.

The essential items listed in the order include groceries, pharmacy items, medical equipment, goods, commodities, fuel, poultry, livestock and feed.

The release said the decision was made out of caution due to the expected increase of visitors to Arkansas “potentially causing hardships.”

“We want to make sure Arkansans and all visitors have an enjoyable experience and come back again and again,” Sanders said in a statement.

The order will allocate $100,000 from the fund to address program and administrative costs and will be managed by the director of the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management.

The only idiot I know that’s stared at the sun during an eclipse is the Orange Dotard.

So, someone found this down here in Lafayette, Lousyana.  Don’t even ask! Maybe that’s why we’ve got a few sprinkles of rain! He’s coming! He’s coming!

As for me, once a Girl Scout and Daisy and Brownie Leader, always one! Today, I’m going to try to see the eclipse. I got eclipse glasses for me and the neighbors. I’ve also been introducing all the AirBNB invaders to Ricky, Lucy, Rob, and Laura, the Gold Crested Night Herons, who are back in their nests in Oak Trees on the Neutral Ground. I also ranted about the highly inappropriate gentrifiers and the historical houses they wrecked during yesterday’s Bywater house tour.

We live in a historic district from the 1830s. Appreciate it! Your kitchens do not belong in the back parlor, which has been ripped open to the front parlor, with the historical features ripped off and sent to auction! Mine, the pocket door, and the original fireplace mantels are still there! There are plenty of burbs for your turquoise vinyl loveseats in little boxes built for that! I got that from my mother, who led the charge to restore a Victorian Mansion built by a Civil War General and Union Pacific Railroad man. Being a docent in that House was my very first job. It also taught me a lot about architectural styles and furniture. My Little House is perfect example of the period, precisely what I dreamed of owning. I don’t want to sit in an opened-up room staring at a kitchen and sitting in a room with furniture that looks like it came from my orthodontist’s office in the ’60s.

Lucy! I’m home!!!

Let’s get back to the Orange Dotard and his new ad. It concerns the Solar Eclipse, which is a doozy. This is from The Guardian. “Trump posts bizarre solar eclipse ad – with his head blocking out the sun, plunging US into darkness. During the August 2017 total solar eclipse, the then-president went viral when he ignored all eclipse safety recommendations by gazing directly at the sun with his naked eyes.” I really don’t ever want to see the word naked and Trump together in one headline.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it the moon crossing the sun? No, it’s Donald Trump’s head.

Seven years on from the notorious moment where he stared directly at the sun during the last solar eclipse over the US, the former president is jumping on the sungazing bandwagon yet again.

On Sunday night, Mr Trump posted a bizarre campaign ad on Truth Social where his own head takes on the role of the moon – blocking out the sun and plunging America into total darkness.

The video begins with the words “the most important moment in human history is taking place in 2024” emblazoned over an image of the flaming sun, while dramatic music plays in the backdrop.

Images show large crowds gathered to watch the solar event, staring up at the sky wearing protective glasses.

The footage moves between the awestruck crowds and the sun where a huge silhouette begins to slowly move across it.

But, it’s not the moon causing the rare phenomenon. It’s the outline of Mr Trump’s head – complete with quiff, bushy eyebrows and long neck.

As his head covers the entirety of the sun – creating its own solar eclipse – a phrase flashes across the screen: “We will save America. And make it great again.”

And that was the meme world comeback!

Coincidentally, one of my fellow brownies sent this to me today. It’s a picture of a driving tour pamphlet my mother wrote about old Houses in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I illustrated it in high school. I love restored old houses.

There are a lot of headlines you might want to check out, and I will list a few. I need to focus on the natural world and my neighbors right now! I’m getting ramped up for rain that will ruin my eclipse view. Hey! A Girl Scout has to do what a Girl Scout does!

Update:  New Orleans Rains and clouds did not cooperate with viewing the eclipse.  I enjoyed chatting and meeting with the  Underground Women’s Astronomy and  Shit-stirring Committee. Thanks to Anne Renee, and Nancy!  Also, the gay couple across the street was out on the porch with the eclipse glasses I gave everyone I could, only to find out the local libraries were doing that, too.   You can always depend on New Orleans Librarians!  They are fierce!

Let us know how you made it out. I hope you can get through whatever WordPress is doing to make it impossible for nearly everyone–including me–to reply to threads!!

Finally Friday Reads: Inquiring Minds want to Know

Posted: April 5, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , | 6 Comments

John Buss, @repeat1969,

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

We woke up to the news of an earthquake centered in Bedminster, N.J., which means Orange Caligula’s summer palace is likely damaged somehow. I’m visualizing lots of nuclear secrets flying out of the grave of his first wife, Ivana. Perhaps more boxes will turn up, giving Jack Smith a possible new venue outside the loose Canon’s reign of ignorance.

Of course, the Orange Dotard was down in Mar-a-Lardo at an event that should have seen fewer white jackets and a lot of straight jackets. It was a fundraiser for Crazy Kari Lake with a special message from guest Rosann Barr, who is on the NF list these days. She is definitely Not Funny. But, she’s gone full metal maga jacket and QAnon. See the tweet below.

Trump’s meme stock is doing terribly, even by Trump standards. This is from Reuters. Basically, it’s no Game Stop. “Trump-and-dump: Speculators bet on Truth Social ‘meme’ stock.”  Abigail Summerville has the lede.

(RDDT.N), and X found that most were looking to score a quick profit.

They bet that Trump supporters’ fascination with the stock was untethering TMTG’s stock price from the company’s business fundamentals.

TMTG’s current valuation of approximately $6.6 billion is equivalent to about 1,600 times the loss-making company’s revenue in 2023 of $4.1 million, according to LSEG data.

No other U.S. company of similar market capitalization has such a high valuation multiple, the LSEG data shows. This is despite TMTG warning investors in regulatory filings that its operational losses raise “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain in business.

The stock is also among the most actively traded, according to Trade Alert data. While social media posts indicate some Trump supporters have bought TMTG shares, a lot of the trading volume is coming from speculators looking for a quick flip.

“I invested $10,000 last Tuesday because MAGA is crazy and they will pump the stock,” said Sarah, a 21-year-old software developer from Pennsylvania who asked for her last name not to be published. MAGA stands for Trump’s campaign slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’.

The appeal of TMTG to speculators helps explain the stock’s volatility. The shares have risen as much as fivefold in the last two months and are currently valuing Trump’s majority stake in the company at about $3.8 billion.

A bout of this volatility came on Monday, as the stock lost more than fifth of its value. It remained unclear whether hedge funds and other Wall Street firms will get comfortable with such risks to join the speculation. Big investment firms will be required in a few weeks to disclose what, if any, their position in TMTG was as of the end of March.

Like Kari Lake, he’s not having much luck in the courtroom.

Kari herself is fresh off a loss in a defamation case. I guess she is just following in Trump’s footsteps. This is from MSNBC’s The Reid Out’s Ja’han Jones. It was reported last week. “Kari Lake is literally about to pay for her war on fellow Republicans. The Arizona Senate candidate conceded in court that she had said untrue things about a local election official. Now, she’ll fight over how much she has to pay him.”  I guess running for high office as a Republican is the best way to get your court mishaps paid for by someone else.

On Tuesday, Kari Lake essentially admitted defeat in the latest stage of her crusade against a Maricopa County election official whom she falsely accused of cheating her out of a gubernatorial election victory in 2022.

Lake announced she won’t contest a claim that she defamed Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a fellow Republican, after spending the better part of the past two years spreading conspiracy theories about him. Richer filed a defamation lawsuit last year alleging that Lake and her allies drastically altered his life and forced him to hire security after they spread lies about him online and at various events.

As NBC News reported:

Lake’s legal team on Tuesday filed a default judgment motion that indicated she was not challenging her culpability. She instead seeks to dispute the damages. She also said Richer should have to turn over relevant medical and psychiatric records to show that his health was negatively affected, as he detailed in his lawsuit. Lake requested a jury for the default judgment hearing. Lake, a staunch Trump ally, has repeatedly pushed the lie that she won her 2022 bid for governor, and in doing so she took aim at Richer.

This amounts to a pretty pitiful retreat on Lake’s part. But as you might imagine, she’s not framing things that way. Instead, she’s leaning into victimhood and portraying her decision not to challenge the defamation claims as tactful politicking.

In a video posted on social media Tuesday night, she called the lawsuit “ludicrous” and said it was part of an effort by “political elites” to empty out her coffers.  “Since they can’t blackmail or bribe me, they’ve resorted to filing a punishing lawsuit to try to stop me,” she said. She claimed, without even a hint of self-awareness, that she and putative Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump are being subjected to “lawfare” — conservatives’ favorite buzzword these days — designed to “punish, impoverish, and destroy” political opponents through the legal system. She ended by saying that she “won’t be taking part” in the suit.

I hope Trump doesn’t turn on her if she starts peddling a line of Bibles. Also, I don’t think Roseanne’s advice had any chance of hitting folks with solid university degrees in Florida.

Trump had two very bad days in Court last week although the Cannon decision left him some breathing room. BB did a great job of covering those.  The fallout is rather deliscious.  This is written by Katherine Doyle for  NBC News’  ‘The nuclear button’: Special counsel could seek removal of judge in Trump classified docs case, attorneys warn, Special counsel Jack Smith and Judge Aileen Cannon traded terse words in filings this week.”   Good Night Aileen, Good Night Aileen!

Special counsel Jack Smith could soon seek to have the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case recused, prosecutors and defense attorneys warn, describing Smith as being pressed to the “breaking point” over arguments his office said could taint a trial irrevocably.

Smith faulted Judge Aileen Cannon in a scathing rebuke for seeming to take at face value Trump’s “fundamentally flawed” claim around a president’s official and personal records when she asked both sides to put forth competing versions of instructions for jurors in the case and said her request would “distort” the trial. Smith indicated in that filing that if Cannon ruled against federal prosecutors, this could be a trigger for an appeal to the 11th Circuit that could remove her from the case.

“He is close to pushing the nuclear button,” said Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg. “It is a high burden to reach, and it is rarely done, but her proposed jury instructions may have pushed him to the breaking point.”

That proposal for jury instructions, a final version of which would be delivered to jurors at the end of a trial, seemed to consider Trump’s interpretation of how classified documents could be preserved after leaving office, which is at the center of the charge against him.

The latest, most exciting story on Trump and his travails and travels leads to Saudi Arabia. This is from Brian Buetler’s Substack Off Message. “Unmask Donald Trump. If President Biden knows Trump and his henchmen are sabotaging U.S. foreign policy for partisan gain, he should let the American public know before the election.”

President Biden may have reached his wits end, however belatedly, with Benjamin Netanyahu. A readout of their most recent conversation suggests that, in the wake of the World Central Kitchen killings, and the subsequent flight-to-safety of humanitarian workers, U.S. aid will be conditioned going forward on a rapidly implemented ceasefire (of uncertain length) in order to meliorate the catastrophe on the ground.

But Biden’s larger picture goal—and perhaps the only way to lastingly tie this Israeli government’s hands—is a grand settlement, along the lines he’s been negotiating, that would sweeten the deal for Israel by normalizing its relations with Saudi Arabia.

He should thus be alarmed at the news (if it is indeed news to him) that Trump has held at least one undisclosed phone call with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, in recent days.

Trump has been strangely at pains of late to imply that he is at odds with the rest of his party, which lusts for bloody retribution against Palestinians. He recently told a duo of right-wing Israeli journalists, “You have to finish up your war,” and stressed the same thing to the Republican apparatchik Hugh Hewitt, insisting in his television-addled way that Israel is “absolutely losing the PR war.”

On its face, that suggests agreement with Biden. If we could ever take Trump at face value or trust his motives, his private contacts with MBS might not be so worrisome. There is speculation and reporting to suggest that Trump views Netanyahu as disloyal for having congratulated President Biden on winning the 2020 election—perhaps this is his retribution? And he may see some advantage in getting caught advocating for Israel to end its war, so that he might claim credit if a ceasefire materializes in the coming weeks.

But the clear optimum for him—what is in his best interest, the only interest he cares about—is to scuttle Biden’s efforts to reach a grand diplomatic settlement in the region. And between his secret conversations, his private business arrangements with Saudi royals, and his control over Republicans in Congress, he almost certainly has the clout required to subvert U.S. foreign policy in this way. Just as he’s subverted Biden’s Ukraine policy and border-security negotiations for personal gain.

He’s also not necessarily working alone. We learned this week that Netanyahu hosted Jared Kushner for dinner in December, and that Trump treats his degenerate former national-security henchman Richard Grenell as an “envoy” to right-wing leaders abroad.

What’s more likely: that Trump is Biden’s earnest partner seeking an end to the war in Gaza? Or that he would like to create that impression domestically, while working behind the scenes to prolong it? Biden shouldn’t just wonder if Trump and his lackeys are collectively up to no good. He should suspect it. And insofar as he has access to information that confirms his suspicion, he should reveal it to the American public.

Okay, I’m done with this. I can’t handle the daily garbage skow trip that carries the latest grift, insanity, and stupidity of Trump and his cronies. I nearly puked at a picture of Roger Stone and Rosanne Barr sitting beside each other. It’s like a circus of goons!

So, here’s the good news, and it’s always down in the fine print or a quick chyron. “Job growth zoomed in March as payrolls jumped by 303,000 and unemployment dropped to 3.8%.” This is reported by CNBC’s Jeff Cox. This is something that needs to be SHOUTED IN ALL CAPS.

  • Nonfarm payrolls increased 303,000 for the month, well above the Dow Jones estimate for a rise of 200,000.

  • The unemployment rate edged lower to 3.8%, as expected, even though the labor force participation rate moved higher to 62.7%.

  • Wages rose 0.3% for the month and 4.1% from a year ago, both in line with Wall Street estimates.

  • Health care led with 72,000 new jobs, followed by government (71,000), leisure and hospitality (49,000), and construction (39,000).

Nothing moves an economy like a big infrastructure boost from the Federal Government. Thank you, Dark Brandon!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

And this is for Orange Caligula.

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