Wednesday, May 15, 2024

And When He Doesn’t Win In November…

Where does the money come from to pay the lawyers for those criminal trials?

Delay is only a useful legal tactic when your opponent is likely to cut its losses. Criminal trials don’t work that way. Delay is more likely to mean Trump runs out of money.

He’s relying on other people to pay his lawyers in no small part because New York State wants half a billion dollars in damages. And E. Jean Carroll wants almost $100 million. And estimates are his remaining trials and appeals will cost him $100 million or so in lawyers. And if he stiffs them, well…it’s easier for lawyers to walk away from an appeal than from a criminal trial.
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A T-shirt That Raises A Salient Question

Where is Donald campaigning today?
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If I Could Only Corner The Market In Copium

Sure he was...
The former president accepted Biden's challenge to debate in June and September, before early voting begins, but Trump agreed with the conservative host of the Hugh Hewitt Show that the Democratic Party may be forced to replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris or California Gov. Gavin Newsom due to his supposed "infirmity." 
“I don’t think they’ll have a choice,” Trump said, adding that he wasn't sure who the Democratic Party would choose. "I mean, Gavin’s a terrible governor, Gavin Newscum, he’s a terrible governor. I think he does a terrible job. I have things out in California, and you know, it’s so beautiful, everything." 
That sent Trump on a discursive rant about an executive order he signed in 2020 to allow large amounts of water to be diverted from the San Francisco Bay Delta to irrigate farmland in the Central Valley, which would have endangered populations of chinook salmon and delta smelt. 
"The weather is the best," Trump told Hewitt. "Everything is so good, but he just does a terrible job. You know, water, I had a deal for water to come down from the north. They have so much water, and they don’t do it, because they’re trying to protect a tiny, tiny little fish that hasn’t made it, and millions and millions of gallons of water is sent into the Pacific Ocean, routed right into the Pacific instead of coming down throughout California." 
At that point Hewitt stepped in to nudge Trump back on topic by reading his statement accepting the debate challenge. 
"All right," Hewitt said, "I've got your statement: 'I'm ready to go. The dates that are proposed are fine. Anywhere, anytime, anyplace.'"
It started off crazy, and then it jumped off the cliff.
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May You Never Be The Subject Of Rep. Crockett’s Attention

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Rich White Man Privilege Means…

...Rich white men shouldn’t be subject to criminal law.

Also, non-lawyers on Twitter know more about criminal law than judges and lawyers, combined. Especially when rich white GOP men are defendants.

I don’t make the rules.
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So…

...if Biden walks to the podium, it’s a win?

Trump has accepted the dates. Now, how does he waffle on the conditions? Without, I mean, lowering the bar for Biden even further?

Rent free in his head, and 
This is the way: If Biden can make it to the podium and stay on topic, he wins.  I’m not sure he hasn’t already won.
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This Is Bad News For Joe Biden

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Tuesday, May 14, 2024

“Nobody’s Ever Seen Anything Like It”

Besides him? Metaphor: what a concept! He needs his power nap. So he stayed for 90 minutes and left? Was Little Donnie not lonely anymore? Why didn’t Vance bring his friend a blanket? Silence is consent? It’s certainly not “No.” It’s always about Trump. It always will be. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Not in a grown man, anyway. "All the kewl kids are doing it!” How do you not? "People like Alvin Bragg”? Real subtle. But how dare they treat the Rich White Man like other criminal defendants? What kind of justice system is that? The response to a “guilty” verdict in some quarters is going to be fascinating.
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🫏

"I guess we love that he just gives it to us, right?" said a laughing Wallace. "Were you trying to go against the gag order and intimidate witnesses because Trump can't? 'Yes, sir.'" 
Tuberville spoke to the media outside of the courthouse on Monday, attacking the district attorney and witnesses, and went so far as to question whether the jury was truly American. 
"Hopefully, we have more and more senators and congressmen go up and represent him, and go out and overcome this gag order," Tuberville told to Newsmax. "That's why we went up was to go there and speak our peace for President Trump."
A) The Appellate Division affirmed the gag order today.

B) The rest of the GOP is not subject to the gag order And you don’t, in any meaningful sense, represent Trump..

C)  Therefore, you aren’t “overcoming” anything.

D) You all are just idiots.
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He’s Stuck In The ‘70’s

Or longing for a return to Weimar Germany. One or the other. Blind hog: acorn. A stopped clock doesn’t work because that’s right more often., 

And she’s pissed at Trump. This should be interesting.🤨 
I have to wonder what these questions have to do with raising reasonable doubt, but I will say this is why you never see this dialogue in courtroom dramas. 😴 No, not the four letter words. We get it, there’s no love lost between Cohen and Trump. It’s an interesting gambit because if you don’t piss Cohen off, you’ve probably bored the jury. 🤷🏻‍♂️  I’m leaning heavily towards the latter. We already control women’s bodies (somebody explain to me how that 19th century AZ law is worse than the anti-abortion laws in Texas and several other states). Why not make it harder for ‘em to leave? Then we can repeal the 19th Amendment and really fix things!
The Appellate Division already declined Trump’s appeal of the gag order. He should send them some of his clippings. They’re almost worth the paper they’re printed on. All the more reason to put him in jail and take away his phone.

By the way, the real danger to democracy is the electorate. 
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Chicken Entrails

And how you read them.
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😴

Now he’s just bored. Maybe Blanche will relax and go back to being a real lawyer.
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Dear Todd Blanche:

Welcome to the internet, asshole.

“O, my stars and garters! That man used a foul word in connection with my name! O, the indignity! O, where is my fainting couch?! 🛋️ I do declare, I have a fit of the vapors!”

Blanche does understand he’s in New York City? And the jury doesn’t see him as Blanche Dubois?

Next he’ll be saying “we gotta thing here called the Napoleonic Code!”
😈
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🤳

By their fruits ye shall know them:
"Take care that you don't flaunt your religion in public, to be noticed by others.  Otherwise, you will have no recognition from your Father in heaven. For example, when you give to charity, don't bother to toot your own horn as some phony pietists do in houses of worship and on the streets.  They are seeking human recognition.  I swear to you, their grandstanding is its own reward.  Instead, when you give to charity, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so your acts of charity may remain hidden.  And your Father who has an eye for the hidden, will applaud you."

Matthew 6:1-4, SV
  
"President Trump is a friend, and I'm here to support him," Johnson began in his statement. "I'm here speaking with you inside because the court will not allow us to speak inside the building. That's just one of the many things wrong here."
It’s a courthouse, not a public forum. They can actually restrict who goes in there, if they want. They can certainly control what goes on in there. There is no Rich White Man/GOP politician privilege. 

Johnson went out to complain about this, and then he left. The support for Trump is underwhelming.  Nothing against Johnson going to court to support a friend.  But is that what he did, here?  After 90 minutes he raced to the cameras, and left.
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🙋‍♂️

I know that’s Ramaswamy in the back. I think that’s Byron Donalds (only because I know him from his constant race to get in front of a camera for Trump. So hungry to be VP!). The other two are mysteries, and I freely confess I don’t know who Burgum is, or why I should know.

I’m also wondering: has Ramaswamy ever held public office? Isn’t he more a Kardashian politician?

It is cute they all wore red ties. It’s like a school uniform, or something.
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📺 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

“Eric Shawn of FoxNews has to spend a little time reading Gregg Jarrett concerning the 'no crime' Witch Hunt taking place in Downtown Manhattan," Trump posted last week. "Virtually every legal scholar and expert said that I did nothing wrong, the case should not have been brought. Election Interference!"
Trump doesn’t want you to pay attention to this:
"The visual aid of having that exhibit displayed on the screen in addition to when the audio tape was played of the famous 'I secretly recorded Donald Trump' thing accompanied by the transcript, it is so effective because jurors just sit and sit, as we do, and then they see something and they feel the engagement."
, , ,
"No sidebars for incredibly aggressive defense we have seen, no objections," Phang continued. "So what was the import of that? It was a free-flowing, well-paced, clean, succinct, direct examination today. Michael Cohen was afforded the opportunity to drive the narrative forward the way that the D.A.'s office wanted him to do, and the jury was taking notes intensely. There were at least three of them that were feverishly taking notes and looking." 
"So when they go to the jury room to deliberate, People's 35 is something they're going to tangibly have, and they will look at the handwriting," she added. "More importantly, they will see it matches with the central consultants, it matches with the 135, it matches the wire to Keith Davidson, it matches the gross-up — everything fits. And then today, they left to recess today and the last thing they heard was Donald Trump participating in the conspiracy."
That is, what’s actually going on in the courtroom. As Katie Phang also pointed out, Trump made few objections to Cohen’s testimony. Objections correct the record and preserve errors for appeal. The silence is interesting.

No wonder Trump came out yelling yesterday. 

(And please don’t tell me cameras would change this. Unless there were 3-4 cameras in the courtroom and a director nearby coordinating the shots no one would see Cohen and the visuals in the same screen, or see what the jury does: Cohen and the lawyers and Trump and the judge and the visuals. Cameras don’t put you in the room, they give you a peephole.  There is a vast difference between a TV/movie courtroom where every word and action is scripted and camera shots are carefully and tediously prepared, and reality. Even with cameras, we’d all be watching what reporters had chosen to report on, with reporters providing the context because we aren’t jurors, we aren’t there. It’s like seeing the Rockies on TV versus being there yourself. I’ve seen vistas in Colorado so beautiful they’re familiar from ads and movies. But being there is something else altogether. And we simply can’t all be in that courtroom.)
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Whinging = Losing

Explanation:
Republicans always think they’re winning, except in races that are basically uncontested. I first got an inkling of this in the first era of online political betting markets back during George W. Bush’s first term. Those markets were disproportionately made up of Republicans and they consistently overstated Republican odds, for basically any race. It’s basically a rule. If a race is at all close Republicans think they’re winning, or at least say they think they’re winning. Democrats are the reverse. And if they’re demonstrably winning, they worry that they’re not winning by enough or should be winning by more. 
I think anyone who follows politics closely knows this is true – if not in absolute terms than as a universal tendency – and can confirm it by reviewing races over any span of time.
Thesis, and conclusion:
As I said above, my point here isn’t to argue what appears to be the Biden team’s theory of the case. It’s to note that reality that Republicans almost always think they’re winning, if the objective evidence makes it even remotely possible. And Democrats tend to assume or fear defeat – and say as much – unless polls consistently show them crushing their rivals. Not only is this the case but I think if we’re honest about it we assume this pattern to be the case. It’s so clearly the case that it’s actually one of the assumptions we bring to our understanding of politics. We assume Democrats think that way and that Republicans think the other way. And that, to a significant degree, is why reporters and the press generally acts in the way they do.
Johnson is assuming complaining = winning. For Democrats, complaining = whinging. Which, I think, is why Democrats “over perform” consistently.  Whingers just aren’t that popular.
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Maggie Explains It Better Than Anyone

Brutally efficient.
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Don’t Play Lawyer, Kids

It’s an admission against interest, since Trump has tried to argue he paid Daniels to keep the truth from Melania. I’m a long way out of legal practice and even I remember that exception to the hearsay rule (they are legion, because there are so many of them).

Overall it’s just a bad idea to predict what could be done in a trial as if everything were a matter of either/or. If it were that simple Tom Fitton wouldn’t be such a braying ass.
One thing Fitton doesn’t realize is, the state could appeal a directed verdict because it takes the case away from the jury, and so double jeopardy doesn’t attach. The state could appeal, IOW, and Trump could pay for the trial all over again.

Don’t play “lawyer,” kids. There’s nothing simple about it at all.
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Monday, May 13, 2024

Self-Awareness Is A Learned Skill

Clearly. If a southern Senator said that, it would be racist. When a retired Harvard Law professor from Martha’s Vineyard says it… it’s just stupid. Once more, with feeling: Springsteen sold out a stadium nearby, capacity 82,000+, three nights in a row. The number Eric believes in is 5 times the capacity of the space where Trump spoke. And how many people leave a Springsteen concert long before it’s over?

It’s not the lie, it’s the delusion.
Eric needs to stop helping. And now, a representative tweet: Representative of all the Perry Mason wannabes on Twitter, convinced that because they don’t know how to indict and prove a crime, the Manhattan DA’s office doesn’t, either. They think their clever tweets are undermining the legal system (which too many people think is actually possible), and don’t realize that, if they were even close to being right, the burden is on Trump’s lawyers to move for a directed verdict on the grounds of failure to prove the crime(s) alleged.

And if the judge rejects it, well, then, that’s not true, either; and there is enough evidence for the jury.

Not that the wannabes understand the first thing about criminal trials. Then again, they’re following Trump’s lead.
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Playing Possum

From my personal experience: it’s a way of coping with stress when there’s no other escape from the tension.

You know, like possums; who don’t actually feign death. They literally faint.

Sleeping is a similar response.
I rest my case, Your Honor.
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“He Worked For Trump”

So did Allen Weisselberg. And they both went to jail for perjury; because they worked for Trump.

I know it’s not football, but it’s not that hard to figure out. 🏈 
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“Dear Leader”

1)  J. D. Vance is not on trial.

2). Donald Trump is not an infant who must be entertained.

3)  Not the flex he thinks it is.

Does he think Trump will appoint him Secretary of Fluffery?
I stand corrected. He does need to be entertained.
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Will This Turn Into Support For Prison Reform?

(The pictures I’ve seen of MAL are depressing to me. I mean “Get me out of here or kill me now!” depressing. Mental anguish is where you find it, huh?)

Will we also amend the Constitution so that we have only one (Republican, obviously) President at a time? Trump gets the respect he deserves.

(Tuberville left court after 90 minutes. It was all the support he could afford.)
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Mitt Romney Comes To Trump’s Rescue 🛟

 


“Fictional characters are people, too, my friend!”

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‘Real Americans’ Support Rich White (Republican) Men

This is a bit-subtle reference to “Damn Yankees” in New York City(!) to the folks Down South.

Old times there are not forgotten.
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Rich White Republican Men…

...shouldn’t be subjected to criminal jury trials.

That’s in the Constitution!

Well, it oughta be!
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“10,000, 100,000, What’s The Difference?”

In a venue that, at best, holds 20,000, and wasn’t half-full:
 
when it started emptying out: It’s not the lies, it’s the delusion. This man shouldn’t be allowed back in the White House in a tour.
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“But Did They Read The Right Chicken Entrails?”

And read them in the authorized manner? Next week, Nate Silver drops by to explain how many angels really can dance on the head of a pin!
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Sunday, May 12, 2024

🏔️

The fabled mountains of New Jersey. ⛰️  So the question is: could Trump draw a crowd this size?

🤡 
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Everybody’s Got One

???

Oh, this guy!
He knows the vibes of "independent voters." Six months out. He’s a vibes expert.

The vibes have it.

Because, you know:
And similar reasoning: The idea that MTG can make that decision, or make it happen.
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“You Won’t Have Dick Nixon Paul Manafort To Kick Around Anymore.”

You get convicted for tax and bank fraud and plead guilty to witness intimidation and defrauding the United States of America, and they never let you forget it. 

It’s so unfair to rich white men!
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That’s SO Yesterday

Because Twitter is obsessed with the latest shiny thing, does that mean the voters are?

Besides, reduce the ProPublica story to 95 seconds. Go!
Does it matter why he doesn’t get elected, or that he doesn’t get elected? BUT! PROPUBLICA! Yeah, but what about his taxes?
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Bounce The Rubble

It’s Hamas’s fault for using human shields. The GOP plan seems to be: “Nuke it ‘til it glows! That’ll teach Hamas to use human shields!”
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⛳️

Deport them where? ProPalestiniana?  MAGA America: Land of the Free To Deport Anyone We Don’t Agree With, Home of the Grossly Intolerant. Pity he only has time left in the week to fly to Florida to play golf.⛳️ 
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Saturday, May 11, 2024

Thinning Out

Well, looks like there is. Maybe that’s why they were leaving early. What a campaign slogan! Well, he thinks it’s Friday. Another great campaign slogan! The hits just keep on coming! Sunset was early in New Jersey. In sunset veritas. But did he say it in English? Whoever. Even the stands behind him are thinning out. Sun’s going down.  It is a fictional murderer who ate people. But he wasn’t an immigrant, so I guess it was okay. Not like Hannibal Lecter:
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Whether Women Are Treated As Human Beings…

...or incubators under the thumb of the State depends almost entirely on where they live.

Now do non-whites and the poor, and criminal law in general .

Could this framing be any more stupid?
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Well, That's Confirmation

Especially since Axios reported:

Why it matters: The GOP rivals' relationship remains chilly. But the sources said Trump could pick Haley if he were convinced she'd help him win the presidency, avoid a potential prison sentence and cover tens of millions in legal bills if he loses.

Spokespeople for Trump and Haley declined to comment on Friday when asked about the possibility.

Axios is now reporting on Trump's tweet, which it points out is signed "DJT," which "makes it personal."

Maggie Habermann is less gullible.  Although I have a feeling Nikki declined to cover Trump's legal debts, as a starter.  What's interesting is that those debts figure in the rumor/conversation.  Everybody knows why Trump is running.  Maybe more people could talk about it? 

I also think Trump is keeping the door open (as does Ms. Habermann), because those legal debts are a real problem. Especially if he doesn't win in November. "Follow the money."
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Friday, May 10, 2024

“But What Is The Crime?”

🍄 🍄‍🟫
That would be these words which, actually, he wrote:
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Not Too Close To Home

Bedminster? Which raises the question: why doesn’t he ever do a rally in Florida? Anywhere in Florida?

And don’t tell me these have anything to do with campaigning. The MAGA version of Deadheads come to these things. They’re not campaign rallies, they’re Trump fluffer sessions.

And there’s a reason he doesn’t do a rally in Florida, aside from the miserable weather (outside is cheaper). 

He doesn’t want those people in the same state as MAL. The same time zone is bad enough.
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I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Oh, never mind. ...and a mess of pottage. 

It’s a cult.
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MAGA Needs Its Happy Place

Apparently it just can’t function in the real world. And has to imagine a world where it can. SAD!
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A Stopped Clock 🕰️

 Tell that to Allen Weisselberg:

Weisselberg’s free speech is curtailed by his severance agreement.*  But that doesn’t affect Donald Trump, so…

(And I still don’t understand how going to jail for contempt would involve the Constitution. If it weren’t reversed, it would be because of abuse of discretion, not First Amendment grounds.)
That’s exactly what the jury is going to decide. It’s no longer up to you. In state court? In New York? A stopped clock is literally right more often.
Argle bargle whoosh? Is it sundown already?

*and the connection, should you care to chase, is that the Court, as an arm of the state and so subject to the Constitution, could enforce that provision, and punish the party who violated it.
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Next Week Is “Michael Cohen Week”

I’m kind of looking forward to how badly Trump’s lawyers mishandle him. 🍿 
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Fair Enough

The old interview with Larry King shows Trump talking about campaign finance law.  
"Nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do," Trump said in 1999.
I’d say the stretch is believing Trump knows anything about campaign finance laws, but: fair enough.
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Alina Habba Is Saying “I TOLD You So!”

Necheles then tried to introduce Trump's travel schedule logs from his 2016 campaign but they were excluded by the judge because Westerhout was unable to authenticate them and said she hadn't seen them at all until her lawyer showed her them this morning.
It seems to ve contagious sming Trump lawyers. (Still known as one of the best defense attorneys in New York. I worked for a lawyer who impressed upon me the lesson: “They don’t pay us to be wrong!” 

Anyone can make a mistake, but that level, you aren’t supposed to make so many of them. And such elementary mistakes, too.

ETTD.)
Note - Trump was busy during this testimony making edits and highlighting certain passages of favorable newspaper articles and editorials that he had printed out at his table, as he has done every day.
Copium is an addiction, too.
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🎶Time Has Come Today 🎶

The Trump litigation playbook is: delay delay delay.

Tell me how that’s working out.

Private parties in civil suits might cut their losses; but governments got nowhere else to be and nothing better to do. They employee lawyers just to do this, and they like those lawyers to keep busy.

The MAGA Way is the Loser’s Way.
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STEM Is Out Of STEAM

When I was a Teaching Assistant in 1977 (we had our own classes, so we actually taught rather than just handed out tests), I assigned a Woody Allen essay that was the shortest in the book, and basically all one-liners. But it was about history. It required basic knowledge of 18th-19th century European history. Which is to say, you had to have heard of the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution.

None of my students had. And they hated the essay, which I figured would give them a break from the duller fare in the textbook. All of this, I have to underline, was 30 or more years before STEM and state imposed standardized testing.

STEM is supposed to have “evolved” into STEA(rt)M. But there are the fine arts (every college student should have art and music classes), and there are the liberal arts. Like: history. The emphasis in education, still, is on what produces functioning widgets: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Even C.P. Snow would be appalled. (If you don’t know who Snow is, you’re probably the unfortunate victim of STEM.)

Anyway, GIGO is still a useful rule from STEM. Because that’s what we’re getting. See, I have nothing against STEM; I just think the simplistic hegemony imposed in its name is a dreadful consequence of the lack of a broader understanding of the value of the liberal arts which, it turns out, are foundational, not ancillary or even just a concern for pampered and otherwise useless elitists. And it’s not just because those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it. It’s because those who don’t know history are pretty stupid about what’s going on.

But yet, they make good tech drones!
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