Over the Top 🌻 🌻 🌻

Arraignment Day: Quite a few newsworthy things happened yesterday beyond Trump’s arraignment but of course that was the event that dominated the news cycle in an over the top Trump déjà vu/OJ way.  In summary, the former and hopefully never again president, was indicted for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.  The criminal acts were payments to three people facilitated by two others. The frequently discussed $130,000 “hush money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, which was actually the third payment, was paid by one time Trump fixer Michael Cohen whose role in this chapter of the Trump saga has been taken over by lawyer Joe Tacopino, another one of Trump’s say anything, no matter how stupid and deceptive, lawyers.  The $150,000 “catch and kill” payment to playmate Karen McDougal to keep their slightly longer relationship out of the news and another $30,000 payment to a Trump Tower doorman to stop him from going to the press with what turned out to be a false accusation that Trump had fathered an out of wedlock child, both of which preceded the Stormy payment, were made by David Pecker of National Enquirer fame. Trump who asserts that he never had relations with those women though we all know he did, says that those payments were made to protect Melania from the shock and humiliation of learning that her husband was a despicable cad but Bragg debunked that claim by relaying how Cohen’s payments to Stormy were stalled by Trump not because Cohen was having trouble coming up with the money to front Trump who didn’t want to make payments directly to Stormy but because Trump was trying to put off paying her until after the election at which point he planned to renege because at that point, win or lose, keeping Stormy quiet wouldn’t have mattered, proof that he cared little about humiliating Melania but cared a lot about keeping his coalition of hypocritical religious fundamentalists on board his election train. There are more details, my favorites are that the decision to hush by check rather than cash which may have been untraceable was Trump’s and that Trump ended up “reimbursing” Cohen for far more than the $130,00 payment to Stormy, to gross Cohen up for his related tax liability, another indication of Trump’s demonstrably poor business acumen.

Elevations: DA Bragg’s indictment elevated the crimes which would otherwise be misdemeanors to felonies because they were committed in the attempt to cover up other criminal acts, in this case those other acts related election interference because in New York it is a crime to “conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means……including by making false statements that were planned to be made to tax authorities.” They also violated the federal election laws cap on contribution limits.  Legal pundits and Trump’s defense team will tie themselves up in knots trying to dismantle the felony elevation but the facts about the payments and the associated, frequently prosecuted crime of falsifying of business records appear indisputable.  The arraignment took longer than usual because Bragg and his team went out of their way to tell presiding Judge Juan Merchan about Trump’s habit of posting threats targeting the prosecution team, the judge, and their respective families.  Bragg didn’t ask for a “gag” order to keep Trump quiet largely because he knew he wouldn’t get one, yet, but Judge Merchan did tell Trump to refrain from making threatening remarks.  Naturally, immediately upon returning to Mar a Lago, Trump took to the podium and did what he’d been told not to do in a public address that was carried by the right leaning media and CNN which appears to have moved to the dark side. Son Don Jr didn’t even wait that long, he posted a picture of the Judge’s daughter before Trump’s chariot landed.  By the way, the usual suspects were outraged about Trump being persecuted, including Margie Q and George Santos who made cameos at the anemic courtside protest and Gym Jordan who kvetched about the gag order that never happened.  Bottom line, the circus continues, justice is slow, and this case will meander on for months if not years and even indicted and convicted Trump can still become president should the electorate be that stupid.  That said, Trump’s legal woes will mount as all those other civil and criminal cases are fighting for time on his calendar with many claiming to be in the know predicting that Fulton County’s Fani Willis will indict him in early May. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Connor is so convinced of that happening that he’s cancelled his May vacation plans. Also, yesterday a federal appeals court in Washington rejected an emergency bid by Trump to block several of his aides, including Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller, and Dan Scavino, from testifying to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury related to his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. Next stop, if any, SCOTUS?     

Say Cheese: Now some important, though less titillating news.  Yesterday liberal Janet Protasiewicz won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election race beating out the very right-wing election denying, anti-abortion candidate Dan Kelly by 10 points. The less than charming Kelly conceded because when you lose by 10 points what else can you do, but slammed Protasiewicz saying that “it brings me no joy to say this, I wish that in a circumstance like this, I could concede to a worthy opponent.”  Protasiewicz’s victory is remarkable because, as Wisconsin’s two Senators, Democrat Tammy Baldwin who is up for reelection in 2024 and Republican Ron Johnson who like Governor Democrat Tony Evers just won reelection in 2022 know, statewide elections in 50/50 split Wisconsin are typically decided by teeny tiny margins.  Moreover, her victory shifts Wisconsin’s Supreme Court from conservative to liberal, or really just back to what most of us would consider normal, a big win for those who care about reproductive rights, fixing the state’s absurdly Republican skewed local districting and that other little thing, letting voters determine the outcome of presidential elections without legislative or court interference. Unfortunately, there’s a chance that Protasiewicz’s victory could be short lived, not because her win isn’t totally legit but because Republican Dan Knodi won a special election for a state Senate seat.  His victory, assuming it holds, gives Republicans a supermajority in the State Senate, a bigly problem because even before election day, Knodi and many of his likeminded compatriots vowed that if Protasiewicz won, they’d begin impeachment proceedings against her for her crime of being pro-choice and because of the possibility that a liberal leaning court might force redistricting that would result in some Republicans losing their seats. In case you think that Wisconsin Republicans are an anomaly, consider Florida, a state where teachers aren’t allowed to select books but where Governor DeSantis just signed a law permitting everyone to carry concealed guns without a permit and without any training and where he is next expected to sign a 6-week abortion ban.  That’s Ron, who just lost his most recent skirmish with the Mouse in the war he started as part of his performative anti-woke campaign all because he wants to be the next president and will need the fundamentalists that Trump kept on board by illegally hiding some of his sexual peccadilloes during the 2016 election cycle.

Unintended Consequences:  Vladimir Putin hates NATO and has justified some of his aggressive actions, like his invasion of Ukraine, as necessary because of a need to defend his motherland from NATO’s growing membership.  Well now Finland, the European country with the longest border with Russia is a member of NATO.  Unfortunately, due to squawking from Turkey and Hungary, Sweden isn’t a member yet, but they probably will be soon enough. Worth noting that Vlad’s American BFF Trump recently told Fox’s Sean Hannity that those rumors that he’d withdraw the US from NATO are true and that he thinks that it’s only a matter of time before Russian takes over all of Ukraine because abandoning Ukraine is his secret plan for ending their war.  Something to look forward to if Trump retakes the Oval office.  By the way, despite Hannity’s best efforts to shut him up, Trump also said that it was his right to keep those purloined documents and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.  An admission against interest?      

Happy Passover and Easter.  Matzo balls and chocolate eggs for all!