Mostly Monday Reads: More of the Same (Sigh)

Posted: April 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: "presidential immunity" | Tags: , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Fartman arrives at the Manhattan Courthouse for another week of heroics battling the Deep State. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

What a rainy Monday this has become!  At least April is consistent, and we’re getting plenty of spring flowers here!  I hear the frogs and green anoles chirp.  Frogs are wonderful!  They can also whistle, croak, ribbit, peep, cluck, bark, and grunt. He has today off, but we will undoubtedly hear more weird sounds from Donald as he is once more confined to a cold courtroom with its hard chairs and people ruining his branding once again!

This is from Public Notice. The analysis is provided by Lisa Needham. “Trump’s criminal trial is off to a bad start for him. He’s low energy both inside and outside the courtroom.”  The Correspondent’s Dinner didn’t help his mood any either.  We’ll get to that.  I promise.

Thanks to New York’s relatively strict laws regarding media access to courtrooms, Trump’s trial has what is, for Trump, the precisely wrong level of exposure. New York doesn’t allow cameras or live audio, and it’s only because of the extraordinary nature of the proceedings that the court administration decided to make daily transcripts of the trial available for free on the court’s official website. Transcripts can run to thousands of dollars for a single day and are not usually turned around within 24 hours.

So, with the proceedings not entirely behind closed doors, Trump can’t outright lie about what transpired. But the lack of cameras and real-time coverage also means Trump can’t turn things into a circus by engaging in ridiculous behavior to distract media attention from the trial’s substance. When you combine this with the fact that the judge, not Trump, is wholly in control of the order of proceedings each day, this has to be one of the most maddening and humiliating experiences imaginable for him.

Trump can slake his thirst for attention and deploy his clumsy attempts to derail the narrative only a few times per day, when he is swarmed by media entering or exiting the courtroom. On those occasions, he goes on brief, highly repetitive rants that generate nothing but negative headlines for him.

Perhaps worst of all for Trump, even his most die-hard supporters don’t seem all that interested in trekking to Lower Manhattan. Trump is self-soothing over this, spinning an easily disprovable yarn that the courthouse is an “armed camp to keep people away” and that officials are turning around thousands of his supporters. Instead, CNN journalists attending the trial have said there have been days where the teeming number of MAGA faithful can be measured in single digits.

Needham says, “Trump is itching to get back on the campaign trail.”  I’m not sure he has enough energy for the golf course, even with his little cart. Maybe all that anger and outrage will get him off the sofa.  Chauncey Devega, writing for Salon, has this take on this day of peace and silence for everyone not on Truth Social. “The gag “trap” of Manhattan’s hush-money trial: “Trump will take the bait.” Will Donald Trump take the stand in his own defense? Experts weigh in on his first criminal trial”

In all, after only two weeks Donald Trump has, in short order, basically been reduced to being a mere mortal while in Judge Merchan’s courtroom. This reality is the opposite of the titan or God king messiah he presents himself as to his MAGA followers and the public more generally.

In an attempt to make better sense of the second week of Donald Trump’s hush-money trial, its implications for the 2024 Election and the larger democracy crisis, and what may happen next, I recently spoke with a range of experts.

I want to highlight this one.  There are more at the link.

Dr. John Gartner is a prominent psychologist and contributor to the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.”

Trump’s trial in Manhattan is providing more evidence of his apparent cognitive decline. Trump fell asleep 4 out of 6 days of his own trial. Falling asleep is not in and of itself particularly specific to dementia. I fall asleep at dinner parties, because I’m old and work too hard. Bill Clinton was famous for it. But can you remember a criminal defendant repeatedly unable to stay awake at his own trial? I can’t. It’s obviously very rare. Most people are pumped full of adrenaline when they’re in the dock. Some have argued Trump’s just tired, or perhaps deprived of his stimulants. But lots of defendants are tired, and either on drugs, or missing their drugs, while in court, but they don’t repeatedly pass out at their own trials.

However, dementia patients frequently pass out during the day. And come to think of it, this may be the first criminal trial I’ve been aware of where the defendant appears, in my opinion, to have dementia. Is it a coincidence that it’s also the only one I’ve ever known where the defendant can’t remain awake most days? Trump appears to be losing control of his basic biological functions. One is sleep-wake. The other may be excretion. Twitter blew up when both Ben Meiselas and George Conway reported they had heard from multiple credible sources in the courtroom that Trump was loudly passing gas, and the smell was overpowering. This was judged by Snopes to be unconfirmed. But, personally, I happen to trust the people who reported it. I don’t believe they would make that up. There have been unconfirmed reports of Trump using adult diapers.

Normally, this would be a personal matter, but America really needs to know if Trump is incontinent. His apparent disease is progressing rapidly before our eyes and yet we’re being gaslit that this is “Trump being Trump.” That’s true, but it is also Trump appears to be dementing, and the mainstream media doesn’t seem to want to report on that story.

The trial is really a form of psychological torture for a malignant narcissist who needs to appear powerful. Instead, he appears small, confused, and helpless. Jenifer Rubin wrote in her Washington Post column: “Trump day by day has become smaller, more decrepit, and frankly, somewhat pathetic.” Thankfully, the Biden campaign is amplifying this winning message. Biden-Harris HQ, who describe themselves as “the official rapid response of the Biden-Harris campaign” on X/Twitter, wrote: “A feeble and tired Donald Trump once again falls asleep in court.” To fight back Trump must act out. He is defying Merchan’s gag order repeatedly, flagrantly and at a manic pace with no thought of the consequences—in lobby of the courthouse on a lunch break, on Newsmax in the evening, and then dozens of times at 3 AM on Truth Social.

Judge Juan Merchan will be unable to escape a show-down with Trump who will compulsively push him to the limit, and beyond, forcing an inevitable confrontation. Only one will emerge as dominant, and my money is on the judge, but that’s not a foregone conclusion. If Donald Trump is jailed, he’ll wear his incarceration like a martyr, like he’s Nelson Mandela or Alexei Navalny. While Fox News and his base will stoke right-wing outrage, I think sane people still like presidents who don’t get jailed.

There’s still much tea-reading on Donald’s case before the Supreme Court. This is from Business Insider. “A 15-year-old law review by Brett Kavanaugh offers a clue at how the Supreme Court Justice could rule in Trump’s immunity case.”  The analysis by Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert.

But one clue, hidden in a 2009 legal review written by Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, could indicate how the conservative judge may decide in this case. And as Kavanaugh is relatively moderate compared to the court’s other right-leaning justices, his 15-year-old analysis may offer insight into how the other Republican-appointed justices are looking at the matter before them.

In his article, published in the Minnesota Law Review in 2009, when he was working as a US Circuit Judge,Kavanaugh argues that the public grossly underestimates the difficulty of the President’s job and that anyone elected to hold the office should “be able to focus on his never-ending tasks with as few distractions as possible.”

That includes criminal prosecution — at least while in office.

“The point is not to put the President above the law or to eliminate checks on the President, but simply to defer litigation and investigations until the President is out of office,” Kavanaugh wrote, arguing in favor of deferring criminal and civil prosecutions against sitting presidents accused of wrongdoing to ensure they can efficiently carry out the responsibilities of office.

One might contend that the country needs a check against a bad-behaving or law-breaking president, Kavanaugh acknowledges, but “the Constitution already provides that check.”

“If the President does something dastardly, the impeachment process is available. No single prosecutor, judge, or jury should be able to accomplish what the Constitution assigns to the Congress,” Kavanaugh wrote.”Moreover, an impeached and removed President is still subject to criminal prosecution afterwards.”

We hear this from retired Judge Lusttig speaking on MSNBC. “Judge Luttig blasts SCOTUS for avoiding ‘key question’ at the heart of Trump immunity case.”  This interview is with Ali Velshi.   You may watch the interview at the link.

Former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig joins Ali Velshi to discuss his takeaways from this week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim, which many believe will lead to more delays in Trump’s federal criminal cases, and potentially impact the future of the presidency itself. “That this absurd argument is even being made before the Supreme Court is an embarrassment to the Constitution and to our country,” Judge Luttig says. Judge Luttig also criticizes the Supreme Court for avoiding the “straightforward, key question” about the case itself, and explains what decision he believes the justices are most likely to make.

We need to ensure discussions on the Supreme Court’s arguments for this case and the abortion case in Idaho do not go into the darkness with time. This group likes to drag their feet along with their knuckles.

 

Senator Fetterman changed his attire just a bit but glitzy isn’t his thing.

The Correspondent’s Dinner really got to the Donald, who was likely flinging ketchup and farting poo while watching.   This, however, was Biden’s night.  This is from The Hill, as reported by Cate Martel. “12:30 Report — Glitzy Correspondent’s Dinner highlights. Nerd prom weekend!”

“Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) comedian Colin Jost hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner over the weekend.

Jost’s reviews: On one hand, Variety wrote that “Colin Jost Wins Over Tough White House Correspondents Dinner Crowd With Praise for ‘Decent’ Biden.” But on the other hand, The New York Times wrote that “On This Saturday Night, Colin Jost’s Jokes Fell Flat.”

Watch the full dinner, via CSPAN

Meanwhile, here are a few clips out there on the X site.  There were several moments of protest also. Protestors unfurled a Palestinian flag out of the window of the Washington Hilton.  That was the location of the event. 

Joe Biden had some great jokes and delivery.  Example:  ““My wife Jill was worried how I’d do. I told her, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just like riding a bike.’ She said, ‘that’s what I’m worried about.’”  Talk about the ability to laugh at yourself.

My favorite joke by Josh was this one.  “”Can we just acknowledge how refreshing it is to see a President of the United States at an event that doesn’t begin with a bailiff saying, ‘All rise?'”

Please have a great week!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Funereal Friday Reads: Life as a Dank Meme

Posted: April 26, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , | 9 Comments

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.

I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.

This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us  There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern. 

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

 On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.

However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.

All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench.   I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night.  Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so.  Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people.  His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred.  Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved.  They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation.  Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys.  They all want absolute immunity. We have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable.  Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.

It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ Trump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”

… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.

But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.

After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”

Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.

It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”

At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?

Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic.   This is from Adam Sewer, who is writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”

The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.

“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”

“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.

The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law

This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true.   I am shifting to the other SCOTUS shit show this week.  CNN has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver. Who knows what her outcome may have been? Dr. Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho.  Pregnant women are gestational containers there. This analysis was provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.

In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.

The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.

To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.

The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.

Follow the link to the list of take-aways.  While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers.  Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid.
How can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid!  Can we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil?  A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever

So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in.  I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about.  I m  feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House.  We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Guess who John Prine wrote this about?

Mostly Monday Reads: Just Another Manic Monday

Posted: April 22, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Trump Trials and Tribulations, Ukraine | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Trump Legal Team is prepared to start the Manhattan Election Interference Trial and provide a robust defense against Donald’s continuing offenses. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Donald’s getting all the attention in the world right now, but is it the kind he really wants? My Saturday Night Last Walk with Temple, the Poland Avenue Greeter, usually means dog biscuits, scratchies, and attention from the locals sitting on the sidewalk outside the local bars. It’s fest season, so we’re filled with tourists. We met the most pleasant young women from Australia, England, and France! The conversation eventually turned to all the ado about Trump, as it ultimately does. We’re worried about you,” they said. “Nous sommes tellement inquiets pour toi.”  Happy Earth Day!

These folks come from countries where most of us have family members who fought beside their family members. My Father, John, fought in the skies of England and France; he was named after his Uncle John, who fought in the trenches of France and Belgium. I can say that I’m worried about us, too, as our electoral and judicial systems churn through all the detritus that Donald has put us through.

Timothy O’Brien knows Trump just about as well as anyone. He has written books about him and endured the ordeal of Donald dragging him through the court system. He won. This is his analysis for Bloomberg. Trump’s Trial Is the Reality Show He Never Wanted. he former president faces weeks of challenging witnesses and tawdry stories.” 

Prosecutors and defense attorneys will make opening statements today in a criminal fraud trial in New York that Donald Trump has tried mightily, and unsuccessfully, to delay.

He continuously savaged Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the trial, and belittled the charges he faces. He mocked the jury selection process that consumed the case’s first week, and, when awake, appeared so determined to rattle prospective jurors that Merchan was forced to remind Trump that he wouldn’t “have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom.”

Trump’s allies at Fox News and on right-wing social media platforms put the court and jurors in their crosshairs as well. “This isn’t the pursuit of justice, it’s a political persecution that is tearing our country apart,” noted Vivek Ramaswamy, floating atop the flotsam of his failed presidential bid. Elon Musk, fashioning himself as a legal scholar, concurred. He told the 181.5 million people who follow him on X, the social media platform he owns, that “this case is obviously a corruption of the law.”

Jurors felt the heat. Some dropped out, saying they feared for their well-being. That’s a phenomenon usually confined in the US to mob or terrorism prosecutions, but in an era when a former president glowingly compares himself to “the great gangster” Al Capone, here we are. Still, scores of jurors were reviewed and by Friday 12 of them, along with six potential alternates, had been empaneled.

Even then, Trump’s lawyers took a final long shot. They asked a New York appellate court to delay the trial and change the venue because they felt that jury selection seemed rushed. The appellate court swatted down that effort in less than an hour. And now, with a jury seated, the fireworks start. Witnesses will testify, many of them well-known figures from Trumplandia. Trump himself may or may not take the stand.

Trump is veering from rage to petulance, and from slumber to intimidation, in the courtroom because he’s the star of a lurid Manhattan reality show he isn’t producing or directing. He doesn’t control the narrative and others are writing the scripts. And some of the scripts say nasty things about him, his sex life, his bookkeeping and his attempts to bury stories that might have derailed his 2016 presidential campaign.

A televised trial would show us much more about Trump than the sketch artists and people in the room where it happens can explain. Also, we know that televising that trial would put a lot of folks in danger, too. I’ve already seen potential jurors cower at the thought of Trump’s crazed cult and its obsession with guns and violence. I  hope their stories are having an impact. A  lot of our closest friends around the world are worried about us. We are concerned about us.

And he’s already asleep again.

Today, we will get transcripts of opening statements. We also saw Judge Marchan’s decisions on what the prosecution may present that could damage the defense case. Yesterday, we learned the first witness will be David Pecker of the National Inquirer. Doesn’t this feel like an ad for a reality show from Bizzaro World?

This is from the Washington Post’s live coverage. It is being continually updated. “Prosecution calls first witness in Trump hush money trial.”

Prosecutors on Monday called their first witness, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, in Donald Trump’s criminal trial for allegedly falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Pecker allegedly helped broker the payment as part of a “catch and kill” scheme to bury negative stories about Trump while he was running for president. Earlier in the day, the prosecution and defense lawyers delivered opening statements.

Dahlia Lithwick and Anat Shenker-OSorio have an interesting piece up at Slate. “The Trump Trial Is Already Influencing Public Opinion. Pundits are reading these shifts completely wrong—this is exactly the kind of movement that could determine the election.”

Four days in, and with the jury just selected, those in the commentariat class are already ready to offer their closing arguments in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial. Most of the naysayers are lawyers. Some of them doubt that Trump will be found guilty of even a misdemeanor, much less a felony, for his alleged crime of illegally offering hush money payments to hide an affair he had before the 2016 presidential election. They question the soundness of what they deem a rather novel legal theory—elevating the minor crime of falsifying records into the more serious charge of doing so in furtherance of another crime. Others are just exhausted. Our Slate colleague Richard Hasen, in the L.A. Times, declared, “I have a hard time even mustering a ‘meh.’ ” It’s understandable to feel jaded by what has been a yearslong process, with Trump seeming to evade accountability every time—but dismissing this case is precisely the category error that holds that what lawyers believe about legal verdicts is somehow predictive of political and electoral outcomes.

And it’s not just the lawyers. The pundits are also certain they know how the public will think about a trial that’s barely begun. They’re sure they understand how it will affect a vote that remains 200 days away, and they are bringing in survey data to back up their claims. ABC News thus declared, “The polls suggest that a guilty verdict would be unlikely to have a big influence come November,” citing as evidence the fact that “just 35 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans” believe that Trump is guilty in the New York criminal case. As further proof that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s efforts are going to be electorally inconsequential, they go on to reference a Quinnipiac poll showing that only 29 percent of voters would be less likely to support Trump upon a conviction in this criminal trial.

And, sure, all of these are in fact numbers, and they are indeed less than 50 percent, and, yes, we’ve been told many, many times that it takes that plus one to win an election. But this is where so many political analysts have either memory-holed how presidential elections actually work in the U.S. or are demonstrating that motivated cognition is one hell of a drug. Because for Trump to lose this election, it does not require over 50 percent of people to say that this trial would flip their vote. Many people are already absolutely determined not to vote for the criminal defendant. As in 2016 and 2020, the 2024 election will come down to margins of 1 or 2 percentage points in just six states. In this game of winner takes all, even by a hair, dropping “only” 9 percent of your base upon a Bragg conviction—as the most Trump-favorable poll testing the stakes of this case reports—means you would lose the election.

Thus, while it is absolutely the case that 36 percent of independents saying that a guilty verdict would move them away from Trump is less than the 44 percent saying it wouldn’t, when your vote total is presently neck and neck and electoral precedent says it will come down to the wire, you cannot afford to lose anyone, let alone over a third of the gettable voters. That 36 percent matters greatly.

And so, those who are dismissing the electoral consequences of this criminal trial by declaring that events in Manhattan over the next few weeks will merely animate Trump’s base—a base that will see this trial as yet more proof of the Deep State’s (™) persecution of their Lord—are also demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of electoral math. You cannot mobilize the voters who are already absolutely voting for Trump to any greater heights. No matter how rabid their fury, and how bottomless their sense of shared grievance, they still get only one vote each—at least until they figure out how to commit the voter fraud they love to decry on a broader scale. The rank and file in the tank for MAGA cannot become more impactful.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

Politico’s Erico Orden reports on the opening statements by the Defense. “Trump’s lawyer kicks off his opening statement to the jury with four words: ‘President Trump is innocent.’ And he said he’ll be referring to his client as “President Trump” because “he earned it.” Does this reek of white male entitlement, or is it just me?

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche began his opening statement with these words: “President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes,” he said, speaking slowly. “The Manhattan district attorney’s office should never have brought this case.”

Blanche told jurors that he and others would refer to Trump as “President Trump” because he “earned it.”

“We will call him President Trump out of respect for the office that he held,” Blanche said.

Blanche continued: “He’s not just our former president. He’s not just Donald Trump that you’ve seen on TV…he’s also a man, he’s a husband, he’s a father. He’s a person, just like you and just like me.”

As he spoke, Trump turned his body slightly in the direction of the jury box, the first time he has done so since the jurors entered the courtroom.

The People call Pecker. John Buss, @repeat1968

The New York Times reports this in its Live Updates. ” prosecutors Allege’ Criminal Conspiracy’ as Trump’s Trial Opens. David Pecker, the longtime publisher of The National Enquirer, will continue testifying Tuesday about what prosecutors say was a plot to cover up a sex scandal involving Donald J. Trump. The former president is charged with falsifying business records.”

I will try to keep an eye out to post the transcripts when they become available later today.

I would like to mention the vote in the House to provide continued support to Ukraine. This is from Reuters. “US  House advances $95 billion Ukraine-Israel package toward Saturday vote’.”

The U.S. House of Representatives advanced a $95 billion legislative package on Friday providing aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific in a broad bipartisan vote, overcoming hardline Republican opposition that had held it up for months.

Friday’s procedural vote, which passed 316-94 with more support from Democrats than the Republicans who hold a narrow majority, advanced a package similar to a measure that passed the Democratic-majority Senate in February.

Democratic President Joe Biden, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries had been pushing for a House vote since then. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had held off in the face of opposition from a small but vocal segment of his party.

In addition to the aid for allies, the package includes a provision to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, and sanctions targeting Hamas and Iran and to force China’s ByteDance to sell social media platform TikTok or face a ban in the U.S.

The legislation provides more than $95 billion in security assistance, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian aid, which Democrats had demanded.

If the House passes the measure, as expected, the Senate will need to follow suit to send it to Biden to sign into law.

Schumer on Friday told senators to be prepared to come back over the weekend if needed.

Wow. What a Newsday!   I promise to try to keep up with some updates!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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?

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