Monday, March 04, 2024

I Thought His Hair Was Orange…🍊

...or yellow. And considering the documentation of how Trump cheats at golf, this isn’t the brag he thinks it is.
Haven’t heard that argument since at least the’60’s. Democrats voting is SO inconvenient! 🗳️  Expanding the base! And making Trump MORE popular! Like two of his three wives? But people still come to his rallies (fewer and fewer and fewer), so he’s going to win. This time.

Lagniappe.
Sometimes you gotta work the people who think they are the refs.
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Judge Luttig Speaks

“Today's ruling, Jake, was both astonishing and unprecedented, not for its decision of the exceedingly narrow question presented by the case — though that issue was important — but rather for its decision to reach and decide a myriad of the other constitutional issues surrounding disqualification under the Fourteenth Amendment," said Luttig. "In reaching and deciding those questions unnecessarily, the court — the majority, as the concurrences said effectively — decided that the former president will never be disqualified from holding the presidency in 2024, or ever, for that matter. But even more importantly, as the concurrence said effectively, the court today decided that no person in the future will ever be disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, regardless whether he or she has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States." 
Not only is the decision indefensible, argued Luttig, but it is — ironically — exactly the type of political interference from the bench that the conservative judicial movement he helped create, and that the sitting justices were raised in, was founded to stop. 
"It's a textbook example, Jake, of the kind of activist judicial opinion from the 1960s, and the Warren Court era, that began the conservative legal and judicial movement in the 1970s and 1980s," said Luttig. "But of course, it's different here because this is unmistakably a conservative court, most of whose members were leaders of that conservative movement."
That which you most oppose, you most come to resemble. 

It’s, like, a rule of the universe, or something.

And I have to ask why he’s surprised this Court would act this way. Has he not been paying attention? I suppose he thought Roe was the work of an activist court. But the VRA? Affirmative action? Prayers in schools? How does he feel about Griswold, I wonder?

Any movement/theory/ideology pursued diligently enough commits the errors it set out to remedy, because it gains complete authority. Or did I say that already?
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Eehhhh, Could Be!

Wait a minute:
Remitting the $7.3 million award and the $65 million punitive award, as discussed above, would reduce the bond amount to $24.475 million, which would be more than sufficient to secure any minimal risk to Plaintiff," Trump's attorneys wrote in a filing over the weekend. 
Last month, Kaplan declined Trump's initial request for a reduced bond or a delay, but asked for a reply from Carroll's lawyers. In a filing last week, her attorneys argued that the reasoning in Trump's request relief "boils down to nothing more than 'trust me.'" 
Trump's lawyers responded by arguing that Carroll's concern about Trump's limited finances is contradictory, highlighting that at trial her lawyers emphasized Trump's wealth to convince the jury to reach a higher damages award. 
"Plaintiff's current position -- that President Trump's ability to satisfy a judgment of $83.3 million is in doubt -- is 'clearly inconsistent' with her position barely one month ago that President Trump has $14 billion in assets and can thus easily satisfy an enormous punitive award," defense lawyers wrote. 
While Trump also owes $454 million in his civil fraud case, his defense lawyers argued that judgment is "unlikely to be upheld on appeal" and that the former president has many illiquid assets that could secure the judgment. 
"Having accused President Trump of failing to provide evidence, Plaintiff relies heavily on double-hearsay, speculative news articles alleging facts outside the record to imply that President Trump's financial situation is precarious -- contradicting her own trial evidence," defense lawyers wrote.
This is why the court requires a bond. Trump’s primary argument is that damages are going to be reduced on appeal, so let’s cut out the middleman and reduce them now.

That’s what appeals are for; and what appeal bonds are for.

Now, this attack on Carroll is flat out bizarre. The plaintiff’s post-trial assertions in response to Trump’s request are simply a response to the request. Trump bragged he had the money, but now says he shouldn’t have to pay it. How is she “contradicting her own trial evidence” in a trial that’s over, and on an issue not relevant to the findings of that trial?

Didn’t Trump say, under oath, that that he had $400 million just lying around?

They got nuthin,’ including money.
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🌞

Giants once walked among us.
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This May Be Apocryphal...

...because I saw it on Twitter, but the statement was that there's a saying in Germany:  if there's a table with 10 people listening to one Nazi; you have 11 Nazis.

I think they would know.  And speaking of Nazis:
Only if the mistake of 2016 is repeated 100 years from now and 200 years from now. Are you saying lifetime Secret Service protection is not enough? Or that Presidents get to make decisions outside of, and despite, the law and the Constitution they take an oath to uphold? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "Be there! Will be wild!" is not one of them. It's a conspiracy of haters. Because, of course it is. By the way, how's that bond for $83 million coming? Or the one for $450 million? Gonna post those soon, are you? "Good" is such a subjective measure. "Legal" is a much better one. We've had 44 prior Presidents clear the bar of "Legal." Funny you couldn't do it. I think we're all pretty damned sure you're not what the Founders wanted. Is it sundown already?
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“So Complicated, So Complicated, Just Wanna Blow My Horn!” 🎶

As accurate an analysis as I have read today.
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Minds Thinking Alike

So which parts of the Constitution still need enabling legislation? And do we need a separate court system just to decide which of those don’t interfere with states’ rights?

Maybe the majority could give us their thoughts, since they already extended themselves beyond the bounds of the case to set up this mess.
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People Unburdened By Knowledge

And they want you to know how stupid they really are: I mean they really, really, want to prove it. Sure, machines are unnecessary. If you want to know the results in a month. How long did it take the Cyber Ninjas to hand re-count the AZ ballots? Let’s do that 50 times for federal elections!
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As I Was Saying About The Worst Kind Of Politics

At least the Supreme Court majority can majestically wash its hands in public…

Or not:
I haven’t read the opinion in full, but I thought the majority had ruled Congress needs a whole new statute to enact this clause. Which the Roberts Court can then declare unconstitutional because it interferes with the states.

Bet me.
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Trump’s Lawyers Suck

A continuing series.
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I Think She’s Serious

The argument is that Smith can file a superseding indictment and charge Trump with inciting insurrection under the referenced statute. Which is a great idea, if you want the trial in 2026.

Incitement raises 1st Amendment issues. More delays, challenges, etc. So let’s go for conspiracy, a la Georgia. Now we need new defendants, and it becomes a much more complicated case. And no chance of a trial before 2025.

So, sure, the head of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers can’t hold federal office (arguably). But the courts are not going to save us from Trump.

We have to do that.
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Maybe This Only Applies To Major Party Candidates 🧐

Age must be proven by evidence in court. Citizenship must be proven by evidence in court. And courts could vary on those opinions, depending on the facts presented in each court.

But this can’t be proven in court. Because: reasons.

I wonder how the Court would rule if a state court had adopted the “birtherism” argument and struck Obama from a state ballot.

I just find this argument very weak.

And the majority argument that Congress has to take care of it when the question is raised is a vet political (not necessarily partisan) way to try to dodge the appearance of “playing politics” with this decision. IOW, it’s political in the worst way.
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Brevity Wins

Even when it shouldn’t. CW is that Biden’s policy on Gaza us “awful.”
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News Is Gossip

I think the simpler analysis is: policy is boring and accomplishments are not news.

Twitter and TeeVee are not long-form fora. Both focus heavily on brevity. You gotta get your soundbite in, and “Joe Biden is old” doesn’t need the explanation that “Joe Biden has accomplished more in three years than any president in recent memory” does.

Besides, the first sounds “objective” while the second sounds like “opinion.” Or you’d have to explain it, and the panel has already moved on. Even on PBS, panels are not for discussion, they are for regurgitating CW. 

Sort of like ew’s analysis: “Tl;dr.”

“I don’t have time for that, bro. I’m sorry that happened to you. Or I’m glad for you.”
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Sunday, March 03, 2024

Off The Top Of My Head?

In answer to a question in the title of the article, I’d say promoting Jerry Falwell to a position of apparent authority way back when.

He taught Trump how to be a public racist and Moms for Liberty how to exploit groundless fears with vague accusations, and used evangelicalism for power. A shining example of Christian humility and compassion for the least among us, he never was.

Not surprising; that shit really doesn’t sell. It’s the heart of the gospels, but honestly, those just get in the way of amassing power and wealth, too.
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“It Only Takes 90 Minutes In The Movies!”

Judges would also accept any commentary on the “wisdom of the crowds” (“Some people were saying…”).

Amazing how much expertise there is among persons unburdened with knowledge.
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American History 🐂

Americans have always embraced fascism when it suited them. Slavery; Jim Crow; Trail of Tears; Wounded Knee; turning ”Indian Territory” into Oklahoma. The Tulsa Massacre. Postcards of lynchings in the 20th century. Eugenics laws, until that was synonymous with “Nazis.” The Tuskegee Experiments. I’m just going off the top of my head at this point. The Kent State Massacre, where it was decided the Guard did nothing wrong shooting innocent students because a handful of students were rowdy. Isn’t fascism about imposing power in the name of the state? Of order? Of compliance?

I mean, it’s not like Trump has made the fasces the symbol of MAGA, is it? Still, we call him a fascist.

There are lots of examples of violence in the name of order in American history. Waco and Koresh. Bull Connor. Selma, Alabama. The Edmund Pettis Bridge. We don’t call all those “fascism.” But now we see fascism because Trump?

I’m just saying, we have been down this road once or twice before. It all depends on whose ox, doesn’t it? And how vicious we want to be. Definitions matter. But when the boot is on your throat, or the gun is firing at you, do they matter that much?
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💉

Sharpened it to a very dull point.
I’m sure Trump thinks he means “Covid vaccines.” 💉 But that just means Trump is very stupid. I knew adults who had polio as children. They lost the use of their legs, one way or another. I saw film as a child of people in “iron lungs” because they couldn’t breathe on their own. When the vaccine was available, my parents took me to a school building (it had large rooms to accommodate the people) to get my sugar cube. Best vaccine I ever had, because the rest had to be delivered hypodermically.

My mother-in-law suffered partial hearing loss in one ear because of childhood measles. Measles walks the land again because people won’t get vaccinated against it, or vaccinate their children. Me, I don’t want tetanus, diphtheria, mumps (had them as a child; don’t want them again), etc.

But as I said, Trump is stupid. That hasn’t changed since ‘16, either. But maybe we shouldn’t forget it because “Biden is old” or his policy on Gaza is “awful.” Are we stuck with that narrative, too?
Only if we want to be. We don’t have to remain blind to reality, do we?
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⛪️

Is this how they’re getting people into the pews since I left? Vaping marijuana (c’mon, it’s Colorado!) and giving hand jobs?

Makes Paul’s concerns about the Galatians suddenly look more contemporary.
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Coming Around Again

This is good old-fashioned GOP isolationism. Pre-WWII, pre-Pearl Harbor variety. It never went away, it just went quiet.

And here it is again. Every GOP argument against funding Ukraine is a Ghost of Isolationism Past. Like racism, like xenophobia, like violence, this is as American as cherry pie.

We’ll never be rid of it. We just have to recognize it.
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Press The Meat

I was walking through the room as The Lovely Wife watched MTP, where “the panel” was earnestly discussing the pending SOTU. Of particular concern was whether or not Biden would appear “old.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say they didn’t spend 30 seconds in the entire show discussing Trump’s rallies yesterday.
Or mention that.

There’s a reason I don’t watch TeeVee news anymore. The narrative gets serviced just fine without my eyeballs.👀 
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“Plausible”?

"Plausible” is a Trumpian argument. It’s the argument Trump used to justify (well, to himself) all his attempts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election. He was convinced the polls (again: the ones he liked) had declared him invincible (a la Macbeth?), and he used that conviction to declare the outcome fraudulent.

I’m not saying that was enough. I’m saying that’s what he did.

So why does a Biden win have to be made “plausible”? Why does it have to align with the “buckshot use if the curved question” (Walt Kelly) asked of less than 1000 people who answered the phone to a stranger (I never do)?

Every four years we swear by the power of campaigning (he/she who raises the funds has the credibility) but demand the polls be the Delphic Oracle which will reveal the true future because polls, not campaigns, are what count.

“Plausible”? Are our elections now only valid if they align with the polls and the expectations of the pundits? Is that what we have “normalized”? Trump’s wailing about his losses have all been based on the predictions he (and his supporters) want to hear. They were made “plausible” because we all look to polls to pull back the curtain if time and shine a light into the darkness that is the unknowable future.

Maybe let’s just say there will be a political campaign, as there has been since Washington stepped down, and the polls will imperfectly try to mirror the results before they happen. It’s not Biden’s election that has to be plausible; it’s the interpretation of the chicken entrails that we call “polling.”
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Saturday, March 02, 2024

The Truth Will Out

Had to stop himself. And he goes again in Virginia, shortly. Or whenever he gets there; he’s famous for being late. It IS contagious! 😷  And the people say: “AMEN!” Haunted by the specter of Obama. Specters everywhere. It also gave us interracial marriages. Or what we now just call “marriages.” It’s sarcasm. In his mind, anyway. Where things are interchangeable: Not the flex he thinks it is. Truth keeps coming out. All the country’s a stage "We are back, Grandpa. We got back years ago. Why don’t you get ready for bed, now? Sun’s goin’ down.” “Sure, Grandpa. Great, big guy, with tears in his eyes. He cried for you, did he? That’s nice, Grandpa. Drink your warm milk 🥛 now.” "Yes, Grandpa, but we had to take your phone away, remember?” Grandpa does that, now. I can see it. Especially since this is the same speech he gave earlier today... ...and nobody’s going to report on how utterly off the bubble he is. We need to. So why can’t we?
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🐍 👧

I’ve said that to The Golden Child more than once.

Of course, I’ve also told her she’s my second favorite daughter. And gave her a coffee mug with that logo on it.

She’s an only child.

We have a very understanding relationship.
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😷

It’s hot. Or it’s contagious.😷  Okay, it’s just contagious. Outta yer ass. Projection is a cruel mistress. Not a legal defense. Or a coherent statement. Please ask why his lawyers haven’t dismissed the case yet. Joe Biden approves this statement. And this one. For thee, but not for me! His mommy said so. No wonder he wants that trial postponed. Wait’ll he finds out they’re made in China! They tell him the sun 🌞 comes up because of him, too.  "We don’ need no steenken’ badges!” Another sign of his incredible popularity. And blacks like him; more than they do MLK. Because MLK never racked up 91 felony counts.
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Don’t Get Me Started

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Yeah, About That…

I’ve had more views of this blog today. And NOBODY reads this blog. (No offense, I just know I’m less significant than a raindrop in the ocean. Thanks for coming, anyway.) This is where I recall that 538 predicted Trump would win by 57 points in South Carolina. Trump himself said he’d win by 80 points. One prediction was about as accurate as the other. We might as well examine chicken entrails.

Or, you know, wait for election results.

And what Presidential election with an incumbent is NOT a referendum on the incumbent?
Just copy and paste from the last 20, 30, 40 years. Only the names have to change.
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When Even Trump Knows It’s Over

The DQ of Willis is not coming.

Whatever she and Wade did, it didn’t create a conflict of interest (he wasn’t representing a defendant). No evidence of a conflict was ever presented.

The guy convicted of fraud for obtaining money under false pretenses is complaining about where Willis got her money, when there was no evidence questioning that at all? 

Willis wants this case to go to trial in August. Maybe that’s what Trump is worried about.
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💸💸😎💸💸

This is not stopping the execution of the judgment. And it’s not paying the judgment, either.

That’s the thing about appeal bonds. The judgment is a court order that a party has to pay up. It’s not a suggestion or a finding: it’s an order. The only way to stop that order is to prove you can pay up, and you will, if you can’t get the whole sum tossed out. You can’t delay execution while moving all your assets to an offshore bank or your cousin. 

The best part of this is Forbes insisting Trump is worth billions, and can pay this judgment. But that “worth” is not really “worth” as we ordinary people understand it. I’m “worth” the value of my house; on paper. But if I have to sell it to satisfy a judgment, what good is that to me? I have to get less than the best price because I need to let it go; and now I don’t have a home to live in. If that is what I’m “worth,” I ain’t worth it. Literally.

Trump is paying his legal bills with campaign contributions. Isn’t he rich? Is this a clever business move? But he’s literally robbing Peter to pay Paul, because he’s running out of money to campaign on, and outside the primaries, he’s going to have to campaign. And what’s he going to do that with? The RNC is not going to be a piggy bank. Ronna Romney McDaniel had strong connections to deep pockets. Laura Trump is the poster child for nepotism babies. She has zero fundraising skills. Trump is going to get control of the RNC and find the cupboards are bare.

It won’t be long until Letitia James is forcing the sale of Trump Tower; and that won’t be enough to pay the judgment. More dominoes are going to fall. Trump is going to spend weeks in court in Manhattan. He’ll have to; that’s the terms of his bond. And E.Jean Carroll is going to come calling for her $83 million within a week. James may have to get in line. And the legal bills are just going to get higher by the end of this month.

MAGA may be in denial:
But it’s going to be hard to deny that Trump is broke and his assets are being sold off and he’s (very likely, by summer) a convicted felon. And then MAGA proves to be a very small number of people indeed, and Trump’s positions, aside from his troubles, not all that popular: Biden hasn’t started to campaign, and all that “Trump is popular” blather (heard repeatedly from one “journalist” on Washington Week last night) is going to be disavowed by the time he does.

😎
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Friday, March 01, 2024

Alternatively…

Elon Continues To Prove He’s A White South African  It Was That Or Let Hamas Get It, Says IDF
Trump Hears About 15 Week Abortion Ban, Wonders If It Means Banning Abortion For 15 Weeks  Bibi And The GOP Have More In Common Than You Think 

(No, Seriously: )
  Obama Needed An Anger Interpreter. Trump Needs A Black Interpreter. BREAKING NEWS: Abbott Loses VP Bid. Film At 11.
Be Careful What You Ask For. We MEAN IT!
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If You Do Or If You Don’t

Nobody says anything, because 🤷🏻‍♂️ : “Trump.” Joe Biden “offering an olive branch.”🕊️ 

Or:
The priority of the GOP is to not govern. This isn’t new. It became public when Mitch McConnell announced his priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Now that the party takes him seriously, McConnell realizes the party has left him.

Be careful what you wish for.

But the press can’t discuss it because the GOP isn’t saying it. “Objectivity,” ya know.
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Carrying On, My Wayward Son

That’s Bradley done. Someone tell Sean Hannity they’re playing the race card (and how is this evidence of a conflict of interest? Of any kind?) Legal Twitter erupts in anger because the judge didn’t rule from the bench and set the trial for Monday because the movants wasted his time, in 3…2…1…
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While I Was Watching “Dune Part Two”

(which is even better than part 1), closing arguments were heard in the DQ hearing (no, not Dairy Queen) for Fani Willis. Again, people with too much money to spend on lawyers, and no good sense how to spend it. There were a lot of lawyers on Twitter equally lacking in good sense. You try two cases: one to the jury, one to the judge. You try the case to the judge in pretrial hearings. Trying a shit motion is never a good idea, and this was a shit motion. Lawyers were outraged that Fani Willis could behave in a manner that would subject her to these allegations. There were regularly broadcast and tweeted concerns about how she’d lost the case by her implied stupidity (rhymes with “cupidity”), and how it would inevitably taken away from her office to die a quiet death in another county. There were tremendous concerns about the appearance of impropriety and how it was clearly about to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

And then came the hearings, and the “star witness” decided, after all, that he couldn’t swear to it. Literally. So now, after three days, the judge never should have held this hearing because NOW we know there was no evidence, and how dare they all waste our time?

Huh.🤔 

The allegations never were serious. It was the equivalent of: “Teacher! Fani and Wade were making out during the pep rally!” But we couldn’t know that until the hearing. Until no evidence of a conflict of interest was ever presented, and the judge gave the moving parties every opportunity to do so. That’s what judges do. With the attention of the national press on this case, the worst thing McAfee could have done would be to hold an in camera hearing during lunch and chase the lawyers out of his chambers for wasting his time. Even I would find that suspicious.

As it is, the defendants who backed this motion took their best shot, and failed miserably. The Press, ignorant as lemmings, raced over the cliff chasing the story of adults having adult relationships; disappointed, I think, that they never got salacious details or grainy photos. Fani Willis went to court and kicked ass from here to Sunday, and her father won our sympathies. If this hearing did any good, it was to show the country Ms. Willis is a force to be reckoned with and knows what to go to court with (i.e., evidence and a cause of action/criminal charge), and any further claims the defendants make to the press should be ignored until they are made to the jury. Who will be in a much better position to decide what those claims mean than the chattering heads in cable TV and the empty heads on legal Twitter.

The movants never had a conflict of interest case. What they had was gossip, and in the end not even that. The courtroom is no place for gossip, and even worse a place to find out you don’t have any evidence. It was worth something, after all. We learned that we have good prosecutors from the DOJ to Manhattan to Fulton County, Georgia. And we learned Trump isn’t the only one who has lawyers whose mouths write checks their asses can’t cash. That cannot make those clients feel good about their futures.
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Texts Are Not Testimony

Which says something about the quality of his testimony. So, there are now 413 known texts between Ashleigh Merchant and Terrance Bradley.
There were 413 texts exchanged between a key witness, Terrence Bradley, and Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for defendant Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, helping her build a case that suggested the prosecutor engaged in an improper romance, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who reported acquiring the text message evidence. 
Bradley helped Merchant's defendant prepare efforts to dismiss Willis by accusing her of misconduct by hiring personal injury attorney Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor in the sweeping criminal case and then carrying on a romance that had them spending suspected taxpayer funds on lavish trips to Napa Valley and the Caribbean.
But Merchant screwed her own pooch.
Before she filed her motion that exposed the relationship, Merchant asked Bradley point blank when the Willis and Wade began dating. 
Merchant asked: "Do you think it started before she hired him." 
“Absolutely,” he told her. 
She also supplied Bradley with an unfixed draft of her motion to suss out any errors and he noted she should include some income he earned from the DA. 
“Anything else? Anything that isn’t accurate?” she asked him in a text. 
“Looks good,” Bradley answered.
But what about the financial angle? You know, the reason to establish a conflict of interest. Fucking may be unseemly in BFE rural Georgia (if you’re that old), but Atlanta? Gimme a break. Besides, Bradley began to show signs of reconsidering the value of his 15 minutes of fame.
 Merchant had claimed that she would try to keep Bradley's identity anonymous telling him she "protected you completely" in the document she filed. 
“I am nervous,” reads a Merchant text from Jan. 8 — the day she filed her motion. 
“This is huge.” 
“You are huge," Bradley told her. "You will be fine. You are one of the best lawyers I know. Go be great.” 
Ultimately Merchant subpoenaed Bradley. 
“I will leave you out but think if I don’t subpoena you it would look fishy,” according to a Jan. 24 text. “What do you want me to do?” 
“I’m ok with it,” Bradley wrote back. 
Bradley also guided Merchant on potential staffers at the DA's office and even her security detail, texting her: “Subpoena them all."

Merchant was looking for gossip, not serious grounds to establish a conflict of interest. Most annoying to me were the tongue-cluckers who blamed Willis for putting herself in the position of being the target of gossip Bradley couldn’t even substantiate. Bradley made it all up, and when it came time to say it under oath, he realized he couldn’t. That would put his law license on the line.

But why let that stop you?

This has never been anything more than a smear campaign. And a desperate, poorly investigated one, at that.
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Run With Reinie!

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