March Madness 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌧️ ☔️ 🌀

Storm Clouds: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is off the campaign trail for now, dealing with Hurricane Idalia, the dangerous category 4 storm smashing into the gulf coast of his state, please stay safe if you are in the affected area. Though there’s never a good time for a hurricane, Ron D has got to be just a wee bit relieved that the storm is deflecting attention from the racist Jacksonville shooting and his less than impressive performance at last week’s Republican debate.  As to the debate, the poll results are in and though Trump is still way out in the lead, an Emerson College poll shows him ”down” six points to 50% with DeSantis “up” two to 12%, Ramaswamy “down” one to 9%, Pence “up” four to 7% and Haley “up” five to 7%.  The biggest take away is that Trump’s support has softened a little but with so many other candidates to pick from, his drop probably doesn’t matter much now and will only matter if the trend continues and if voters coalesce around one of his opponents. Though Ramaswamy garnered lots of attention, he probably offended more people than he impressed and only picks up more points in hypothetical polls that remove Trump’s name from consideration because why go for Trump petite when you can have Trump grande?  Miami Mayor Francis Suarez who didn’t qualify for the first debate, won’t be at any of the future ones because he’s now officially out of the race, the first candidate to throw in the towel.  

Super Monday: On Monday, Judge Tonya Chutkan made it clear that she wasn’t buying the Trump team argument that the January 6/election interference case should be put off until 2026.  Instead, she set March 4, 2024 as the trial date, that’s a few months later than the January date that Special Counsel Jack Smith requested but no one really expected the trial to start then so it’s a win for Jack and a loss for Trump’s lead lawyer John Lauro.  Lauro’s effort to delay the case for years went nowhere with the Chutkan who saw right through his absurd request and appeared disgusted at his citation of the landmark Scottsboro Boys case fair trial ruling, likely because equating Trump’s treatment to the 1931 railroading of nine African American young men was not just a push to far but truly offensive. Despite Chutkan’s admonishment that Trump behave, the “strawberry blonde” one who has taken to calling Jack Smith “demented Jack” took to social media with his usual vitriol posting “Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge game me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted.” Trump added that he would “APPEAL” He won’t appeal, only because the date isn’t appealable, but his lawyers will keep filing motions that might delay the start date.  Should the start date stick, March will be chock full of fun, not only will there be the usual March Madness basketball insanity but also a slew of primaries including multistate super Tuesday scheduled for March 5.  

The Meadows Conundrum: Most, if not all, of the legal pundits predicted that Mark Meadows wouldn’t testify on Monday, but he did. Trump’s former Chief of Staff who has kept so far under the radar that some believed that Special Counsel Jack Smith had him in witness protection really, really wants his Georgia indictment dropped or failing that to have his trial moved from Fulton County to a federal court so he took the risk of testifying on Monday and maybe even contradicting statements he’s made under oath to Jack and his team. Meadows testified that he was merely doing his chief of staff job when he organized and participated in calls as part of Trump’s pressure campaign to flip the Georgia presidential vote red. His position is that his job was to do anything Trump wanted him to do and that making sure that the election was “legitimate” wasn’t a political move that crossed the Hatch Act separation of campaigning from official government function legal line but was just part of an above board effort to make sure that the 2020 election was properly conducted, so what if that effort involved pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into finding 11,000 or so more Trump votes. Also. who cares that presidential elections are run by states rather than the federal government.  Most of the same legal pundits who said that it would be folly for Meadows to testify say that though his attempt to move his trial to the Federal Courts isn’t frivolous it won’t fly.  However, they could be wrong as late yesterday US District Court Judge Steve Jones asked both Meadows’ legal team and Fulton County prosecutors to provide him with briefs on whether the Fulton County case should be moved to federal court if at least one, but not all, of the acts charged against Meadows occurred “under the color” of his chief of state role. Though that likely means that the judge believes most of what Meadows did wasn’t Kosher, something he did met the standards of a Hebrew National frank. In other Fulton County news, District Attorney wants all of her 19 RICO defendants tried at once so yesterday she asked the Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee who last week ruled that Kenneth Chesebro’s request for a speedy trial be honored to clarify if that meant that his case had to be severed from the other 18 or if she could try them all on Chesebro’s expedited schedule something that Trump, one of those 19, and a few others won’t be happy about. Also, there’s some good news for Harrison Floyd, the RICO defendant who was still being held in jail. Floyd, not to be confused with actor Harrison Ford, who helped lead Black Voters for Trump is accused of participating in the scheme to intimidate poll worker Ruby Freeman into saying that she’d committed voter fraud, has finally gotten a lawyer who has arranged for his bond. On the subject of lawyers, reports are that Special Jack is looking into Rudy Giuliani’s drinking problem in an effort to establish that Trump knowingly relied on election advice from an inebriated and impaired legal counsel while ignoring the advice and conclusions of the many sober ones who told him that he’d lost the legitimately held election.

Election Mulligan?  🌻 🌻 🌻

Weekend Update: The first Republican debate is behind us, but wacko of the moment Vivek Ramaswamy is getting the star treatment, being given the opportunity to spew his nonsense on the Sunday morning news shows. Since he’s probably running to be Trump’s running mate, it’s not surprising that his nonsense includes pontificating on what he would have done had he been in Mike Pence’s shoes on January 6^th.  He says he would have tossed the 2020 election results, unilaterally implemented single day voting and government issued voter IDs, and started a new, presumably short election campaign on January 7, leading to a mulligan presidential election.  Sure, that makes no sense and isn’t in the Constitution but whatever.  By the way Vivek is listed as an unaffiliated voter in his home state of Ohio and didn’t vote in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections and though he believes that voters should be required to take a civics exam before they’re allowed to vote, his grasp of how the Constitution works is tenuous at best which obviously makes him the perfect candidate for this Republican party. In other weekend news a crazed, racially motivated shooter with swastikas etched into his legally purchased guns shot up a Dollar Store in Jacksonville, Florida killing three Black people out doing the normal things that people do over the weekend.  He first tried to enter the campus of historically Black college Edward Walters University but was turned away by a security guard who reported his suspicious behavior to the local police. Police have concluded that the shooter acted alone and that is technically accurate but it’s hard not to see that he was spurred on by the racial hatred permeating our current eco system and on social media.  Though similar shootings have and likely will happen elsewhere in the country, it’s worth noting that under Governor Ron DeSantis who is still second to Trump in most Republican polls, Florida now allows permit-less carry and teaching about the history of racial injustice is a no-no because doing so makes some people uncomfortable while getting shot only kills or maims them.     

Scheduling Update:  So many indictments, so little time and so much of it taken up by dueling cases.  Today, Judge Chutkan who is overseeing the election interference case which should not be confused with the Georgia “find me more votes” case or the Mar a Lago purloined documents case is set to consider and may actually select the date of the trial that she is responsible for overseeing. Special Counsel Jack Smith has requested a January 2024 start date while Trump’s lawyers have requested a date in April of 2026. Judge Chutkan has yet to comment on Trump’s inappropriate, witness intimidating social posts but did say that she would accelerate the start of the trial if he misbehaved so we could find out if she meant it today. Judge Chutkan’s case involves only one defendant, albeit the bigly one, but the Fulton County case being prosecuted by DA Fani Willis has 19 defendants, the bigly guy and 18 others. All of the Fulton County defendants have turned themselves in, all but one is out on bond, with one funded by Silk of Diamond and Silk fame and another with a dicey criminal record still stuck in the slammer and Trump has replaced one hip hop lawyer with another one.  A few others including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are trying to get their cases moved to Federal Court.  Meadows’ argument which is expected to be heard today is that he is immune from state charges because he was just performing his official duties as a federal official when he tried to help overturn election results.  DA Willis’ counter is that he was engaged in political activities during a re-election campaign rather than engaging in formal government responsibilities and in any case election interference does not fall under the category of “official duties.”   It’s not clear if Meadows will testify today but it is likely that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his chief investigator Frances Watson who have been subpoenaed to appear will. As to the start of Fani Willis’ trial, there are going to be multiple starts because last Thursday co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, architect of the fake electors strategy, who requested a speedy trial, something that he is entitled to do under Georgia law, was granted an October 23 start date. Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell has also requested a speedy trial though her start date hasn’t yet been set.  On the one hand, all these separate trials will tax Fani Willis’ office, on the other hand Willis who took her time about issuing indictments in the first place is thought to have anticipated the requests and may have all her ducks in order.  In any case, the concept of multiple trials with some starting early is thought to be damaging for Trump who wants his trial put off as long as possible and who doesn’t think that Powell and Chesebro won’t try to lay the responsibility for their actions at Trump’s door step?  That’s already happening with a few of the lesser-known co-defendants, the ones who unlike Trump weren’t able to raise $7 million off of their mugshots.  A few of them are already pointing fingers his way and are likely to try to obtain plea deals with Willis in exchange for their testimony.  As to the absurd cavalcade of “official” vehicles that preceded and followed Trump’s mugshot and faux weigh-in, what was that about and how much did it cost?  Wouldn’t a small private jet and two or three cars have sufficed but when you’ve got other people’s money to burn and love the attention, why not go for OJ on steroids?

And:  A Vice Chairman of CPAC, the conservative political action group has stepped down from his position while urging that the CPAC board investigate two other sexual misconduct accusations against Chairman Matt Schlapp.  In an ordinary time, Schlapp would have stepped down by now, but these aren’t ordinary times.  And would you be surprised to learn that candidate of the week Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to avoid testifying in a civil case against his biopharma company by asserting that he’s too busy campaigning for president to show up in court. The perfect Republican candidate.  Lastly, Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee has launched a probe into the motivations for DA Fani Willis’s investigation.  He also wants her to reveal any and all discussions that she’s had with Special Counsel Jack and the DOJ.  That will go no where but it will garner lots of attention on right wing media.  Of more concern for Willis is that utilizing a Georgia law that was recently passed and signed into law by Governor Kemp, Republican Georgia state representatives are calling for a newly formed state commission that was ostensibly created to make it easier to oust “progressive” district attorneys who aren’t prosecuting enough criminals, something that DeSantis has already done twice in Florida, to fire Willis in order to kill the case against Trump and his 18 co-defendants.  To make that go anywhere, they’ll need the help of Governor Kemp who to date has been trying to stay above the fray mostly because Georgia is purple these days rather than ruby red. Kemp who is relatively popular in Georgia is likely to challenge Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in 2026 and probably has presidential aspirations of his own.  It’s not clear what he’ll conclude is in his best interests to do.

2nd Chance Bail Bonds 🌻 🌻 🌻

Chock Full of Nuts:  Yesterday was one weird day.  Putin’s chef and former mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin was shot out of the sky presumably by goons operating at the direction of Trump BFF Vlad Putin; claiming political persecution Rudy Giuliani surrendered to Fulton County authorities and was then spotted leaving A 2^nd Chance Bail Bonds, where he went to obtain funding for the $150,000 bond he can’t afford; Rudy’s mugshot as well as those of several of his co-defendants including kraken queen Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis,  Kenneth Chesebro, and John Eastman were posted online; that other co-defendant, Trump, whose counterprograming Tucker Carlson interview aired on X last night during the first Republican presidential is due to turn himself in to Fulton County officials tonight during primetime; and India landed on the moon. And as if all that wasn’t enough, last night Fox aired the first Republican presidential debates. I tried not to watch but sadly couldn’t resist partially due to all those update texts I kept getting from friends 😊, so I did eventually tune in.  My take, tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy was loud and obnoxious, that kid you hated growing up, only far worse.  Moreover, his opinions suck bigly, especially if you think climate change is real, Ukraine gets to remain independent, and we need some government. Former VP Mike Pence was surprisingly articulate and forceful even if his religious righteousness is beyond hard to bear.  NJ’s Chris Christie wasn’t bad, but neither was he great, a bit of a disappointment though his characterization of Vivek’s spouting “chat GPT” text was spot on as were his criticism of all things Trump.  North Dakota’s Doug Burgum was a fish out of water, another rich dilettante who thinks he’s got what it takes to be president because he could afford to pay small dollar donors $20 to contribute $1 to buy his way up on the stage but doesn’t or else is just auditioning for a cabinet position or ambassadorship. I expected more from former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. but he came off surprisingly muted and will probably exit the race soon. Florida’s Ron DeSantis who at least three times exaggerated his military experience making it sound like he was a SEAL rather than a JAG officer, spoke in stiff canned talking points and came off sounding like the pompous liar he is.  South Carolina Senator Tim Scott may be a “nice guy” but his canned “above it all” message lacked substance and was repetitive, weak, boring and, like Pence, too rooted in his religion.  Saving the best performance for last, agree with her views or not, former South Carolina Governor/UN Ambassador Nikki Haley came off the best.  She’s smart and came armed with facts, slamming DeSantis for his statement that European Countries needed to ante up more for Ukraine by pointing out that most are already contributing more as measured by percent of GDP than the US. She’s firmly anti-abortion but at least spoke truth by saying that passing a national ban on abortion (ugh) through the Senate is a pipe dream given that doing so would require 60 votes that aren’t there.  Despite the fact that her performance exceeded all the others by a lot, it’s unlikely that she’ll rise much in the Republican polls because it’s Trump’s party and logic and merit aren’t likely to prevail and because though Republicans might someday nominate a woman, she’ll probably be more of a Kristi or a Sarah than a Nikki. One more thing, there was lots of dog whistling as in blaming things on George Soros (wink, wink Jewish guy) and also attacks on teachers, well teachers in unions in public schools because underpaid religious school ones teaching in segregated academies are presumably okay.     

Ripe Peaches: Neither Mark Meadows nor Jeffrey Clark have yet appeared in Fulton County.  Both tried to get their arrests put off while they await a decision on having their cases moved to Federal Court or even dropped as both are arguing that they were just doing their “federal” jobs when they participated in trying to toss out election results.  Too bad for them, late yesterday a federal judge ruled that though they can continue to try to get their cases moved, the law requires them to appear in Fulton County by Friday for fingerprinting, mugshots and the rest of the stuff that goes along with being arrested. Meadows who many believe has been cooperating with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors seems particularly perplexed. Unfortunately for him, to the extent he is cooperating with Jack’s team and given that we’ve recently learned that Meadows told Jack’s squad that he has no knowledge of Trump declassifying any of the super-secret documents the former guy claimed to have declassified Meadows probably is, that cooperation doesn’t appear to involve Fulton County DA Fani Willis, at least so far.  Keep an eye on Meadows because he may be formalizing a deal, but at least so far, his deal is not done. However,  Mar a Lago IT Director Yuscil Taveras who was first introduced to us as “Trump Employee 4” does appear to have worked out a deal with Jack’s team. Taveras has ditched Stanley Woodward, his Trump PAC funded lawyer who also represents Trump valet Walt Nauta as well as a few other members of the Trump squad. Taveras has come clean about how Nauta, following the directions of the “big guy”  tried to get him to destroy the video tape of the purloined documents being shuffled around Mar a Lago. Smith’s office wants Woodward removed from representing Nauta and the other defendants he’s repping on Trump’s dime.  The information about Taveras’ cooperation with prosecutors was released in response to questions from Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon who was “concerned” about Jack Smith still having a Washington DC grand jury looking into the events at Mar a Lago. With the Taveras testimony cleaned up, that grand jury is no longer active.

Spare Change:  If you are available on September 7 and are so inclined, head over to Trump’s Bedminster Club where he’ll be hosting a fundraiser for Giuliani. To be clear, Trump isn’t giving Rudy money but at the request of Andrew Giuliani he’s hosting a reception for the dye dripping former mayor.  Of course, to attend you’ll have to ante up $100,000.  Maybe you’ll get to see Margie Q. Don Jr, Kim Guilfoyle and Matt Gaetz who will probably still be fuming about being banned from Fox’s post-debate spin room, something to do with Rupert Murdoch and company exacting vengeance on Trump for his decision to eschew the first debate to instead give an X interview to Tucker where the two danced around violence and assassination.  As to X man Elon Musk, check out Ronan Farrow’s article in The New Yorker.  Musk who controls far too much of the technology that powers our defenses, cars and space program is also “escalating” his use of ketamine to calm his personal demons.  Fun?!?  And lastly, much is being written by respected legal experts like Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe and conservative idol Judge Michael Luttig, the legal expert who told Pence that signing off on the electoral college vote wasn’t optional, about how the 14^th Amendment to the US Constitution bans insurrectionists like Trump from serving as president. That’s nice but if we’ve learned anything by now, theoretical legal arguments, even when they’re right, aren’t going to get us out of the mess we’re in.  We need to vote, contribute and advocate like our lives depend on it because they do.

 

Putin's Apple 🌻 🌻 🌻 🍎 🍎 🍎

Fried Oreos: The Iowa Caucuses don’t take place until January but the pollsters and the people who report on their output are already busy marketing their wares which explains why we’re being inundated with news articles about poll standings.  About all you need to know right now is that Trump despite his two impeachment trials, plethora of indictments and his sexual abuse and defamation of EJ Caroll is leading by a mile.  Tomorrow night eight of those competing with him or trying hard to be selected as his running mate will take to the stage in Milwaukee for the first Republican presidential debate.  The qualifying eight include: other Florida guy Ron DeSantis, former VP Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Governor/UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, NJ bridge gate guy/former Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.  Quite a few others have missed the cut, including former Texas Congressman Will Hurd who like Christie and Hutchinson is part of the anti-Trump wing.  Trump, who described himself as the apple 🍎  of Putin’s eye during a tete a tete with Larry Kudlow of Fox Business News, will not be on the stage for this debate or any of the others instead he’s pre-taped an interview with former Foxy Tucker Carlson whose texts saying that he hated Trump “passionately” and that he was happy that as a result of the 2020 election he “truly couldn’t wait” to ignore Trump were revealed as part of the Dominion Voting Machines discovery but that was then and this is now and both of them need each other so apparently all is forgiven, at least for the moment.  The Tucker-Trump interview will “air” on X, the company formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday night as counterprogramming to the debate.  As to the debate itself, we know a bit about DeSantis’s strategy via his super PAC which “leaked” and then quickly took down a tick-tock of what they told donors he should do.  That “slip” was less a slip than the way that super PACs which are prohibited from speaking directly with their preferred candidates communicate their messages, so the slip was that someone outside of DeSantis land saw the memo, not that the memo was posted for a very short time.  The PAC’s recommendation is that DeSantis defend Trump from expected attacks by Christie, that he “hammer” Ramaswamy who has been climbing in the polls and that he sneaks a few Biden attacks in for good measure.  There are a lot of reasons to hammer Ramaswamy, among other things he says that he’d cut the government workforce by 75%, he’d eliminate the IRS,  he believes that Russia should be able to keep the parts of Ukraine that it wants, he thinks abortion is murder and supports a six-week ban, he wants everyone to be able to carry a gun, he’d raise the voting age to 25, and he unabashedly” supports Trump but the real reason that DeSantis, who will likely also mention that Ramaswamy is Hindu to feed the fears and biases of the religious right, will go after him is because he’s closing in on him in the polls. Ramaswamy is a whole lot more personable than the wooden DeSantis but then again so is a pet rock so he’ll probably hold his own and might even emerge as the winner of this debate, but he’ll probably be more of a “flavor of the moment” than a real challenger.  Then again, there was a time when none of us thought that Trump would be president.

Weigh In? While the press is churning out their debate analyses, Trump will be heading to Atlanta where he is due at the Fulton County jail for finger printing and maybe to take a mug shot and get weighed. My guess is that he tips the scales around 300 pounds, yours? His lawyers have already agreed that he will post a $200,000 bond. Trump, or at least his lawyers say he has, also agreed to refrain from intimidating co-defendants or witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration of justice and is prohibited from making “direct or indirect” threats on social media.  We all know that he is going to violate that agreement, last night he trolled DA Fani Willis about the $200,000 bond requirement and her “fears” that he would flee to Russia, we should be so lucky. The question is what will happen when he clearly violates his promises not to intimidate because even Fani isn’t going to try to toss him in the slammer.  At least Trump has the money to put up a bond.  His co-defendants not so much.  Taking a page from his one-time lawyer Jenna Ellis a number of them have posted go fund me type accounts because unlike him they don’t have the money to post a bond, nor can they afford lawyers.  One of those bleeding money is Rudy Giuliani, who in addition to listing his Manhattan apartment for sale, $6 million ask if you are interested, is selling Cameo video messages.  Only $325 if you want Rudy to wish you or a friend a happy birthday. More if you want him to do so while dripping hair dye?

War and Peace: Last Friday the lawyers representing Trump on the January 6 election interference case requested that Judge Chutkan reject Special Counsel Jack’s request for a January 2, 2024 trial date.  Instead, citing the volume of discovery material, which they compared to the height of the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty and to reading War and Peace repeatedly they proposed that the trial be postponed until April of 2026. Last night Jack’s team responded, calling their claims exaggerated, pointing to the availability of technology that searches documents for key words. The ball is now in Chutkan’s court and though Jack’s January 2 date might not stick, Trump’s witness intimidating social posts aren’t expected to please her as she has already said that she’ll accelerate his case as punishment. Also on Friday, via the release of documentary film aired by MSNBC we heard Roger Stone advocating the false elector plot as an option even before the 2020 election took place and via CNN that Kenneth Chesebro who pushed a more developed version of the plot after the election was at the Capitol on January 6^th hanging with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

And:  The House Freedom Caucus, the broken toys that Kevin McCarthy needs to wrangle to pass anything through the House without an assist from Hakeem Jeffries’ Democrats have issued a series of demands that they want met before they’ll agree to continue funding the federal government.  Those demands include ending the “weaponization” of the DOJ by ending all investigations into Trump while presumably continuing with all those into the mired in increasingly deep doo doo Hunter Biden. They also oppose any short-term continuing resolution while details of a final budget are hashed out.  McCarthy is not going to have a good September which means that the rest of us might not either because despite Ramaswamy’s claim that we could live with drastic, Twitter level cuts in government, the reality is we can’t.  Not if we want passports, roads, tax refunds, social security checks, health benefits, clean water, and so on.  

 

Shut Him Up 🌻 🌻 🌻

Retribution:  The Fulton County RICO case has already had a few notable effects; it has moved a number of politicians to publicly acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. Unfortunately, it has also led to a few death threats.  The politicians speaking truth include Georgia Governor Brian Kemp who responded to another one of Trump’s assertions that the election was fraudulent by saying “the 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud on has failed to come forward under oath and prove anything in a court of law.”  Kemp is hardly an angel; he ran for Governor riding around on a “deportation” bus with the tagline “follow me to Mexico.” He is likely to challenge Senator Jon Ossoff in 2026 and/or run for president in 2028 and probably believes that his current “above the fray” strategy benefits him in the long term but he does deserve some credit for saying the truth when so many others won’t.  His statement was echoed by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and finally by former VP Pence who said the “Georgia election was not stolen.” When asked Ron DeSantis who finally grudgingly admitted that Biden is the legitimate president, pivoted to bragging about the two county District Attorneys that he has fired, a not so subtle attack on DA Fani Willis.  Pence, whose polling remains in the single digits, seems to finally recognize that waffling and kowtowing to Trump isn’t working for him, it’s not clear that speaking truth will either but at this point it probably won’t hurt. We’ll know if he sticks to his new strategy when he appears on the first Republican debate stage next week, an appearance that Trump is expected to skip.  For his part, Trump is doing what he does, planning counter programming for debate night and attacking everyone “persecuting” him.  He’s also promised to hold a “show and tell” press conference on Monday where he says he’ll be bringing exonerating proof in the form of a lengthy report produced by his staff that proves that the election was rigged.  Right after that he’ll deliver his much=awaited health plan and launch into one of his infrastructure weeks? On the even darker side, yesterday a Texas woman, Abigai Jo Shry was arrested for threatening the lives of January 6 election interference judge Tanya Chutkan, Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and the “LGTBQ community.”  Shry’s threats included a call to Chutkan’s chambers in which she said, “Hey you stupid slave,” used the N word and then added “you are in our sights….if Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly bitch.” She also threatened Chutkan’s family. Moreover, taking Trump’s call for retribution and intimidation seriously some of his MAGA maniacs have posted the names and addresses of all of the members of the Fulton County grand jurors on a right-wing website. Its time for Chutkan to shut Trump down if she can only figure out a way to do that without triggering a civil war.

Peaches:  Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who may or may not be cooperating with Special Counsel Jack Smith on his election interference case, has requested that his Fulton County case be moved to Federal Court and Trump is expected to do the same soon shortly. Moving to Federal Court won’t facilitate a future presidential pardon but it does make it more likely that some Republican suburbanites are included in the jury pool.  In addition, cameras aren’t allowed in Federal courts and even though he generally loves the klieg lights, Trump doesn’t want his base to actually see and hear witnesses testifying against him for days on end while he sits idly by with his make-up melting. A few more things about the Fulton County case, though a total of 19 people were indicted, there are also 30 unindicted co-conspirators, a list that is thought to include some of the usual characters like Boris Epshteyn, lots of fake electors and some Trump campaign officials. Also, yesterday DA Fani Willis said that her plan is to start the case on March 4.  That’s probably not going to happen, but it sounds nice. A number of pundits have pointed out that given the number of people she’s indicted, everything about her case will take longer to complete though a number of others have also pointed out that some of her “indicted” will probably go for plea deals, thinning the herd before the case goes to court.  All this legal maneuvering is expensive, less of a problem for Trump who to the extent he actually pays his lawyers uses money that he raised from small mom and pop donors to “Stop the Steal,” but a bigly problem for some other others including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis.  While Trump money is being used to help Giuliani fund the legally required and costly data storing of his records, none of it is going to his lawyers and because she was seen attending a Ron DeSantis event, none of it is going to his one-time side kick Jenna Ellis who is now begging for money on Give Send Go, a Christian crowd sourcing site where overnight her take has risen from $18,000 to $40,000 because there’s a mark born every second.  

Drugs and Districts: Though it feels like the news is all Trump all the time there are other things happening.  Yesterday, an Appeals Court ruled two to one that abortion pill Mifepristone remain legal and available while the case regarding the “legitimacy” of its very legitimate FDA approval awaits Supreme Court review. Unfortunately, the court-imposed restrictions on the drug’s use.  As a result, women seeking Mifepristone will not be able to obtain in through the mails and will be required to first have an in person, rather than a teleconference, visit with a physician, impediments intended to make it more difficult for women seeking abortions.  The dissenting Judge, wanted to ban Mifepristone altogether. On the congressional front, it’s looking likely that a largely Black Democratic district that was redistricted away in north Florida will be restored and we should know soon whether Federal judges will allow Alabama officials to get away with violating an order by the Supreme Court that they restore the largely Black district that they keep trying to gerrymander away.  The expectation is that the court will take it upon themselves to redraw the district lines in order to restore the Black district but it’s Alabama so who knows what will happen.  And then there’s Long Island Representative George Santos.  He’s still in Congress despite all of his criming but one of his former aides was indicted yesterday for impersonating one of Speaker McCarthy’s senior aides while fund raising for Santos.    

X: Special Counsel Jack obtained Trump’s records, including his tweets, cancelled tweets, and DMs, from Twitter but not without a big fight because Elon Musk tried his best to refuse to comply with Special Jack’s subpoena. The twitter fight took place in February.  Twitter ended up being fined bigly by then US District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell who questioned whether the company’s resistance reflected an effort by then new CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to get “cozy” with Trump in part because Twitter had previously complied with subpoenas for other people’s records.  It’s not clear if the records proved helpful to Jack’s team because they weren’t referenced in his speaking indictment but among other things, they likely revealed more about who actually typed Trump’s tweets as well as how his messages were drafted and redrafted on January 6.               

That Perfect Call 🌻 🌻 🌻

Finally: It turns out that Trump’s perfect Georgia phone call not to be confused with his perfect Zelensky call, wasn’t so perfect, in fact it turns out that it was a very revealing tip of a rather large iceberg so after months of hearing that Fulton County indictments were imminent, District Attorney Fani Willis has finally delivered bigly.  She even managed a surprise, delivering those indictments on Monday rather than on Tuesday, the day that they were expected. Late yesterday, after a long day hearing witness testimony, her grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law better known as RICO, alleging that they engaged in a pattern of illegal scheming to overturn the 2020 Georgia presidential election results.  Trump faces a total of 13 charges for a criminal racketeering scheme in which he pressured public officiers and conspired to commit forgery, create false statements and file false documents.  The indictment names 18 co-defendants and includes 13 counts against former Mayor current lunatic Rudy Giuliani, 9 against lawyer promoter of the theory that former VP Pence could reject the electoral count John Eastman, 2 against former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who many believe is cooperating with Special Counsel Jack Smith, 7 against architect of the fake elector scheme Kenneth Chesebro, 2 against ersatz Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, 2 against Rudy sidekick Jenna Ellis, 7 against campaign operative Mike Roman, and 7 against truly nuts kraken lawyer Sidney Powell.  The rest of the co-defendants are lesser known, at least to those outside of Georgia.  They include local politicians, as well as two odd characters who tried to pressure election worker Ruby Freeman, one half of the mother-daughter team whose lives Rudy ruined when he alleged that the ginger candy they shared was really a thumb drive filled with voting data.  Worth remembering, US presidents don’t have the power to  pardon for state crimes.  Moreover, Georgia is unusual in that its governor desn’t have pardon power.  In Georgia pardon power rests with an independent board which is limited to issuing pardons after some of a sentence is served.  Naturally, Trump who probably threw lots of ketchup yesterday attacked “racist” Fani Willis last night on Truth Social, calling her in ALL CAPS, “out to get Trump,” while accusing her of prosecutorial misconduct saying she was lenient on crime and “had allowed Atlanta to become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world.”  Following its usual practice, his campaign is already raising money off the charges and some of his favorite media pundits are calling for Georgia’s Republican legislature to pass a law giving Governor Kemp pardon power, power that Kemp probably is relieved he doesn’t have.  Trump’s lawyers are expected to try to move his case to Federal Court in the hopes of getting a “better” jury as in one not made up of Black Fulton County Democrats.  That strategy didn’t work in New York and probably won’t work here. And at least so far, Judge Chutkan who is overseeing the January 6 election interference case has not responded to Trump’s efforts at witness intimidation but it’s only Tuesday.  

More Broken Toys:  It looks like the cage fight between Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and X’s (as in Twitter) Elon Musk is off, at least according to Zuckerberg.  That said, yesterday Musk who last week claimed that an hours long MRI revealed he needs some kind of shoulder surgery that would delay his participation, said that he was headed to Zuckerberg’s house to start fighting.   While world’s richest man Musk continues to act bizarrely, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos took some time out of his PDA with his fiancee to announce that he is donating $100 million to Maui, something a whole lot kinder than cage fighting that makes up for some of his ridiculous public canoodling. On the subject of fighting, the video of former White House doctor/right wing Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson acting belligerent,  fighting with and swearing at police at a Texas rodeo arena is now available for viewing. Jackson who’s been known to drink a lot, claims he was just trying to help a young woman who was having a seizure by giving her a gumdrop (!?) when police pulled him away to make room for arriving EMTs. The video appears to show that Ronny was both hostile and inebriated despite his claims otherwise.  Lastly, there’s Boris Epshteyn, the Trump advisor/lawyer who is believed to be unindicted co-conspirator in Special Jack’s January 6 election interference indictment.  Apparently Epshteyn shares some traits with his idol Trump.  No he’s not a billionaire or even a make believe one but he is an admitted sexual groper. In 2021 he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in Arizona after being charged with sexual abuse, assault-touching and “harass-repeated acts.”  He paid a fine and served probation.  Only the best for Donny.

        

Food Fight 🌻 🌻 🌻

Fried Tomatoes: On Friday Trump’s attorneys and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team appeared in front of US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to hash out the terms of the protective order governing the treatment of evidence in the January 6 election interference case. After reaching agreement on how evidence should be treated, Judge Chutkan warned Trump and his attorneys that she would “take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings” adding that repeated “inflammatory” statements about the case would force her to speed his trial, something that Trump clearly does not want her to do.  So naturally what did Trump do over the weekend? He re-truthed a social media post slamming Chutkan as “an Obama leftwing activist judge in DC …… who openly admitted she’s running election interference against Trump.”  After several news outlets and legal pundits pointed out that Trump’s re-post violated Judge Chutkan’s admonishment to behave or else, he doubled down overnight saying that Chutkan “obviously wants me behind bars.”  An ordinary defendant ignoring his judge’s warnings would be facing time in the slammer but if we’ve learned anything by now, it’s that neither Trump nor his treatment is ordinary.  Then there’s the added complication that throwing him in jail would be logistically challenging, could cause a January 6^th level riot and would probably raise his polling numbers. The ball is now in Chutkan’s court. While it would be a reach to believe that she’ll throw Trump in jail, she could express her displeasure by fining his lawyers bigly for failing to control their chosen client.  Stay tuned. 

Peach Pie:  Also stay tuned for action out of Fulton County where District Attorney Fani Willis’ grand jury will be hearing from former Georgia Lieutenant Governor, hopefully the last witness they hear from before they start voting out indictments, which are likely to involve violations of Georgia’s RICO (racketeering) law.  Over the weekend CNN reported that Willis has text messages revealing conversations between Trump’s attorneys about a voting machine breach in Georgia’s Trump-friendly Coffee County.  Trump easily won Coffee County, but his team hoped that “breaking” into Coffee County’s election machines would allow them to “prove” that the machines could easily be corrupted by dead Hugo Chavez and other like-minded Trump hating individuals who “flipped” votes to Biden.  According to the text messages, Coffee County elections official Misty Hampton who helped facilitate the voting machine breach sent a “written invitation” to Trump’s attorneys, specifically Rudy Giuliani and kraken queen Sidney Powell, six days ahead of the breach.  Willis has additional information showing that communication regarding the breach was shared up to the top of the Trump food chain, perhaps all the way to the ketchup flinger in chief. To the extent that this is the week that puts the term imminent to bed we’ll know more shortly. Lastly, proving that Trump isn’t the only one with legal problems, Hunter Biden who is not a candidate for president but who is the son of one, has a Special Counsel of his very own.  His Special Counsel is David Weiss, who until now was just a plain old US Attorney.  At his request Weiss was upgraded on Friday. The upgrade gives him the ability to pursue out of state charges.  Attorney General Merrick Garland who seems overly eager to keep his distance from the investigation complied likely so he can continue to say that he’s maintaining his hands off approach to the Hunter quagmire.  In any case, it’s not clear that Weiss’ new title means that the Hunter case has expanded, it could just mean that Weiss is playing hardball in an effort to get the case that both he and Hunter’s lawyers thought was settled,  resolved. Naturally, the same Republicans who wanted Weiss to have Special Counsel powers are now attacking his upgrade. And, of course, because fair’s fair, and we’re in a tit for tat world, Democrats are now calling for an investigation into former White House Aide/Son in Law Jared Kushner’s multi-billion-dollar deal with the Saudis, something that even Republican Oversight Chair James Comer admits reeks.

Corn Dogs: Republicans were out and about in Iowa over the weekend where Ron DeSantis supporters were being heckled relentlessly by Trump supporters. For his part DeSantis whose Florida funded cars had a real accident just a few weeks ago did the photo op thing in a bumper car ride with his kids but not before banishing all the other kids waiting their turn.  Worth noting that when former President Obama did the bumper car thing, he didn’t close it down first, but Ron is Ron and optics management isn’t one of his strengths. For his part entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is one of the odder candidates in the Republican primary rapped an Eminem song to a crowd of well-wishers.  His positions are frightening but he’s got personality which sets him apart from pudding fingers Ron who also has awful views but has little in the way of a personality and Mike Pence who even though they tried to hang him says he’s all in on MAGA but sans Trump.  Then there’s purported Democrat RFK Jr,  who over the weekend while also campaigning in Iowa stepped in merde again.  This time the nepo baby, anti-vax guy who believes that Russia is acting in good faith in Ukraine, told MSNBC’s Ali Vitali that he would sign a 3 -month federal abortion ban.  After his comment went viral, his campaign issued a statement saying that RFK didn’t understand the question that he “couldn’t hear” because of the noise at the venue and that he totally respects a woman’s right to choose.  Vitali politely called that excuse out, saying that she was so surprised by his ban endorsement that she repeated the question to make sure that he meant it.  Though that other nepo baby, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders best known to most of us as Trump’s one time press secretary wasn’t campaigning in Iowa, she pulled a Ron DeSantis move of her own over the weekend.  Her education department announced that while schools could still offer AP African Studies classes, the state wouldn’t award students any AP credit for taking the course and would not pay for any students to take the African Studies AP test even though Arkansas pays other AP course test fees.  Arkansas schools start up again this week so in addition to being a bit, okay, a lot racist, the last-minute announcement puts schools and students who were planning to take the class in a quandary since many students who want to take the course also want the AP credit and the boost that taking an AP course adds to their GPAs.              

 Aloha 🌻 🌻 🌻

Law and Disorder: It’s hard to keep track of what’s going on in all of Trump’s legal cases because to state the obvious there are so many and there’s so much going on. Starting with the first one,  NY District Attorney Alvin Bragg is still churning away at his “hush money” case which despite its click bait moniker concerns the falsification of business documents.  Last week Bragg notched a small victory after a federal judge ruled that attorneys for sexual assault victim E Jean Carroll could give him a recording of an incriminating deposition that Trump gave for that case.  Bragg’s case is currently scheduled to go to court in March 2024.   Then there’s Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar a Lago purloined documents case. Yesterday, Trump and his Diet Coke retriever Walt Nauta were arraigned again, this time for trying to destroy the video of Trump’s “beautiful” boxes getting the afikomen treatment.  Property Manager Carlos De Oliverira’s arraignment was delayed because he still hasn’t formally engaged a Florida lawyer, an effective stalling tactic that may be due to instruction from Trump who is pushing to delay the start of all of his cases until after he or another pardon happy Republican wins the November 2024 election. In a remarkable show of chutzpah, Trump’s lawyers have asked Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon to allow him to reestablish the SCIF he had at Mar a Lago back when he was president to facilitate his review of case documents so that he and his entourage won’t have to travel to another location every time Trump feels a need to touch one of those Kim Jong Un letters or a page or two of the Iran war plans. Needless to say, Special Jack’s team doesn’t think that allowing a defendant to view stolen documents at the scene of the crime is the way to go but since Cannon appears to be unusually accommodating to Trump don’t be surprised if he’s granted permission to set up a SCIF in his ballroom or back in the chandeliered bathroom.  The Mar a Lago case is currently scheduled to start at the end of May, if ever. Now to the January 6 election interference case that Special Jack’s team is pushing to get to court first.  Yesterday prosecutors asked Judge Tonya Chutkan to ink it into her calendar to start right after New Years.  They indicated that they will be prepared to hand over discovery material to Trump’s lawyers in two weeks.  Special Jack’s view is that a “rapid pace” is needed “given the gravity and historic nature of the charges” because “speedy trials are not just enshrined in law to protect the right of defendants, but also to safeguard the public’s interest in the swift administration of justice.” Naturally, Trump’s lawyers are expected to ask that this trial, like the Mar a Lago trial, be delayed until after the election. Chutkan isn’t expected to buy into their request though even she may think that New Years week is a push.  And then there’s Ms. Imminent, Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis, her indictments are expected to start flying next week.

SCOTUS:  First the good news, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberals, the Court issued a ruling allowing the Biden administration to enforce rules on ghost guns while a challenge to those rules continues to make its way through the courts.  Ghost guns are homemade firearms made from kits, not Legos but actual guns. They are called ghost guns because they don’t have serial numbers that would make them traceable. Now the absurd news, Justice Clarence Thomas, husband of insurrection friendly Ginni, has accepted far more gifts than were previously reported.  That list incudes 38 destination vacations, 26 private flights, 12 VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, 8 helicopter rides, 2 stays at luxury resorts, and 1 standing invitation to an exclusive, members only golf course.  None of these gifts came from life-long friends, rather they were given to him by billionaires who befriended him once he joined the Court.  Of course, Thomas failed to disclose any of them or pay taxes on their value. Crickets from Thomas and Chief Justice Stephens though Thomas’s Republican defenders insist that he did nothing wrong, he’s just being targeted by the communist left because of his righteous views.  To be fair, though Thomas has violated norms, his transgressions probably don’t violate ethics rules because none of them really apply to Supreme Court Justices.  Other Justices have occasionally crossed the line, but none like Thomas who apparently has decided that using his Supreme Court to live a rich and famous life on an upper middle-class salary is the way to go.

And: Something is up with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.  He’s now publicly musing about leaving the Democratic party to become an independent.  It’s not clear if he’s doing that to tee up an independent run for the presidency or to bolster his chances of winning reelection in his Trump plus 40 state. It’s likely that he’ll follow Arizona Senator Sinema’s example, still caucusing with the Democrats if he becomes an independent but even that’s not a sure thing.   Lastly, a Trump loving elderly wacko was killed by FBI agents in Utah after he pulled a gun on them while they were attempting to serve him with arrest and search warrants at his home in Provo, Utah. The FBI’s concern: his credible threats to kill or hurt President Biden, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Sadly, it turns out that when Trump targets his “enemies,” some people take his words as a call to action with dire consequences..

Hawaii Fires:  A good place to contribute  https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/

O-hi Buckeye 🌻 🌻 🌻

The Buckeye State: First the good news.  Voters in Ohio, a state that voted for Trump over Biden 53% to 45% and Senator JD Vance over former Congressman Tim Ryan by almost an identical amount resoundingly rejected, by a vote of 57% to 43%, Republican efforts to require a 60% supermajority rather than a simple 50% majority to pass changes to the state constitution. Yesterday’s vote makes it highly likely that November’s vote on enshrining abortion rights, now polling just short of 60% will easily pass. It also demonstrated that reproductive rights and to a lesser extent, defending democratic principles remain vote motivators, good news for Biden and even better for Ohio’s Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown who is up for reelection in 2024. Now the bad news, Trump is still here, still doing his thing, ramping up his attacks on the “stolen, disgusting, rigged” 2020 election, “crooked” Biden’s Department of Justice, “racist” Fulton County DA Fani Willis who he is now falsely claiming had a sexual relationship with a gang member, and January 6 Judge Tanya Chutkan who he describes as both unfair and the judge of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s dreams. Trump knows he lost the 2020 election and that he committed more than a few crimes while trying to remain in power, but he also knows that his idol worshipping base believes what he says no matter how preposterous so he’s arguing his case in the court of public opinion and at least among Republicans and maybe among some of those all-important swingy voters to the extent they really exist, is winning it which is why he has his lawyers trying their hardest to make sure that he can continue saying whatever he wants, even if that means that involves verbally haranguing witnesses, exposing them to the potentially dangerous fury of one or more of his deranged fans. Of course, Trump doesn’t hate all judges, he’s still all on his Mar a Lago case judge, Eileen “loose” Cannon and for good reason because while Judge Chutkan has her foot on the accelerator pedal, Cannon not so much.  On her own, or more likely because she heard Trump’s former lawyer Jim Trusty say something on Fox, likely her favorite, if not only, news source, Cannon is questioning Special Counsel Jack’s ongoing grand jury activity in Washington DC.  She’s off base but by asking lawyers from both sides to weigh in on the issue, she’s impeding progress, exactly what Trump is depending on her doing.  She’s also further damaging her own reputation but she either doesn’t care, is really ignorant, or is positioning herself for promotion once Trump’s retakes the Oval Office. Ugh.

Follow the Money: As to CrackerJack Jack’s ongoing grand jury activities, it appears that he’s investigating the activities of Trump’s Save America PAC which raised money by telling its mostly small dollar donors that it needed funds to “stop the steal” of the “rigged” 2020 election but instead has been using their money to pay for Trump and his crime family’s legal expenses.  If former Mueller investigation lawyer/now MSNBC legal commentator/NYU professor Andrews Weissmann is right, Special Jack may be seeking to freeze the PAC’s funds, which could be a bigly problem for Trump or at least for any of his lawyers who still hope to be paid.  In addition, via the NY Times, last night we learned a bit more about the genesis of Trump’s strategy to stay in office by overturning the election results.  It apparently originated with a previously secret memo written by Kenneth Chesebro, who is not so affectionately referred to as co-conspirator 5 in the text of Special Jack’s January 6 indictment.  Though Chesebro “acknowledged from the start” that his plan was both “bold and controversial” and that the Supreme Court would likely reject it in the end, he “argued that it would achieve two goals,” focusing “attention on claims of voter fraud and buying “the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”  Moving on to Fulton County DA Fani Willis and her ever imminent indictments, word now is that, despite the security ramp up in her neck of the peach trees, we won’t be hearing from her this week but will be hearing from her next week when her grand jury is scheduled to do its indictment thing so once again imminent has slipped a week.   

Florida, Florida, Florida:  Though he’s still mostly polling second to Trump, Ron DeSantis appears to be coming closer and closer to being this cycle’s Scott Walker, the former Wisconsin Governor who was supposed to be the Republican’s 2016 candidate but who never passed Go.  Even DeSantis knows that his campaign is going no where which explains why he’s reorganized again, this time replacing his campaign manager, as if she not he was the problem. Though he won’t say it out loud, DeSantis who has finally admitted that Biden won the 2020 election, still believes that Trump’s legal woes will ultimately take the mango maniac down.  DeSantis’ hope is that if that happens, he’ll emerge as the leading contender.  Unfortunately for him, he’s bleeding big dollar donors, doesn’t have much small donor support and some of his earlier supporters have moved on to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who while not yet an announced candidate is still thought to be one or to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who many believe is next in line to be second to Trump or his VP candidate, a roll that former VP Mike Pence will clearly not play though he has finally met the criteria to be on the first Republican candidate debate stage. At least Ron DeSantis has a job to return to, he can go back to Florida where only excerpts of Shakespeare plays will be taught going forward because teachers fear that teaching the sexy parts will get them axed. Of course, he could go home and work on finding insurance for homeowners but then again since his preferred school syllabus designers are casting down on the dire impact of climate change, maybe not.  

Viral Musings:  Yes, COVID is still here and making a resurgence, again.  The newest Omicron sub variant is EG.5, nicknamed Eris by those in the know.  With our immunity waning, Eris is making the rounds resulting in a 55% case uptick in New York, where COVID related hospitalizations are also up 22%.  The good news is that most people aren’t getting really sick, though having fever and chills still sucks, and that COVID levels are still relatively low.  The not so good news is that stores are having a hard time keeping test kits on their shelves, an indication that more people are seeking them out to confirm their symptoms.  So, if you are in crowded places like elevators, trains, subways and planes, think about masking, especially if you have plans you’d rather not miss or those plans include hanging with anyone who is very vulnerable.  Newly designed Omicron focused boosters should be available soon, but probably not until after Labor Day.       

              

Are Horse Heads Still a Thing?  🌻 🌻 🌻

State of Play: On Friday, targeting everyone associated with his January 6 prosecution, Trump threat posted “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Special Counsel Jack Smith’s rapid response team quickly requested that January 6 case Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order preventing Trump from sharing case evidence over concerns that his not so veiled threat was intended to intimidate and endanger witnesses, people like former VP Pence and maybe even Mark Meadows who many believe, or hope,  will also testify against Trump.  On Saturday Judge Chutkan gave Trump’s legal team until 5 pm on Monday (today) to respond to Special Jack’s protective order request.  Given that delay is a major part of their strategy, Trump’s legal team countered that since expecting them to work over the weekend was unfair, they couldn’t possibly meet that timeline.  Special Jack parried back that in the time it took to complain about the Monday deadline, they could have instead prepared a response to his protective order request.  Agreeing with Crackerjack Jack, Judge Chutkan then responded that she was sticking with the Monday deadline. Then Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro who’d complained about weekend work pulled a Rudy Giuliani by appearing on five Sunday news shows where he previewed  Trump’s defense which essentially is that Trump’s scheme to toss the results of the 2020 election was no more than  a technical  infraction of the Constitution and anyway Trump is special so he gets to say and do whatever he wants even if his “constitutionally protected” words involve engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow the government and anyway violating the Constitution, even if your violation is deemed bigly is okay, well okay for Trump. Worth pointing out, Special Jack’s indictment doesn’t question Trump’s right to lie out loud about the election results, rather he’s going after Trump’s coup conspiring and his efforts to illegally toss out legitimate election results. Trump spent the rest of the weekend sh-t posting, attacking unfit, biased Obama Judge Chutkan, “deranged” Special Jack, all of those Communist Democrats out to get him and anyone who supports him, filthy, gone to pot post-Trump Washington DC, “crooked” Joe Biden and for good measure the “woke equals failure,” US Women’s Soccer Team who obviously lost their match because of “crooked” Joe Biden and due to their overt hostility to the USA.  Worth noting, though he experienced a few points of slippage in the polls, Trump still leads in his party’s polls and worse yet, is neck and neck with Biden.

Judicial Shenanigans: Trump wants Judge Chutkan who the Senate confirmed 95 to 0 replaced because she’s Jamaican born, an “Obama” judge and is obviously out to get him but he remains all in on Judge “loose” Cannon and Ginni’s husband Clarence.  Over the weekend we learned that Judge Cannon whose criminal case experience can be counted on one hand, committed, and then doubled down on two reversible errors on one of those cases. Maybe that can be blamed on a combination of hubris and inexperience but there’s no excuse for Justice Clarence Thomas’ grifting.  When he’s not jetting off on luxury yacht vacations with right-wing billionaires Thomas likes to tool around the country in his RV to rub elbows with commoners.  It turns out that there’s an unethical backstory to all that RVing.  The NY Times reports that his tricked- out luxury vehicle cost $267,000 and that the heavily in debt Thomas bought it with the help of still another wealthy friend, former United Health Care executive Anthony Welters, who loaned him the money, funds that were probably mostly, if not entirely, forgiven. Of course, if Justice Samuel Alito is right, Thomas has nothing to worry about.  Alito’s questionable position is that the Constitution prohibits Congress from imposing ethics rules on SCOTUS Justices but then again, he probably has nothing to worry about because this Congress won’t even try.    

The Buckeye State:  Keep an eye on Ohio where a special election is taking place this week. Ohio’s Republican controlled legislature is so concerned that voters will cast their ballots for enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution in November that they’ve squeezed in a special August referendum to vote on raising the threshold for amendments from 50% to 60%.  They’re doing that over fears that the popular pro-choice amendment, currently polling at 59%, will likely pass in November.  The Republicans, who previously had ruled out future August elections because of low voter turnout, were hoping that low voter turnout which generally benefits Republicans would make it easy to get their 60% threshold referendum passed.  Of course, they failed to anticipate the outrage that their move would provoke.  Early voter turnout has been extremely high. We’ll know after the polls close on Tuesday whether it’s been high enough and whether Democrats, suburban women, their male allies, and anyone else who cares about reproductive rights are still motivated by the issue. And keep an eye on Fulton County where Fani Willis’s imminent indictments are expected to really be imminent. 

All Trump All The Time 🌻 🌻 🌻

Legal Morass: Trump flew to Washington yesterday where he was once again fingerprinted but not photographed because who needs another picture of the mango maniac? Few of his MAGAs showed up to greet him but press from everywhere was out in OJ level force as was fellow Republican presidential candidate and hanger on Vivek Ramaswamy.  Trump was accompanied by valet Walt Nauta, one of the indicted co-conspirators on his Mar a Lago case and Evan Corcoran, who is still on his legal team even though he can no longer represent him on the MAL case, the result of being called as a witness to Trump’s hide the purloined documents shenanigans. The legal team for the Washington DC case is being led by Todd Blanche and newest lawyer John Lauro both of whom have US Attorney office experience.  In addition to defending Trump in court, Lauro’s responsibilities include playing TV lawyer so last night he appeared on both Fox and Newsmax where, taking a page from Rudy Giuliani’s playbook, he admitted that Trump had interfered with the electoral ballot process, but since all he did was just try to “pause the voting and allow the state legislatures to take one last look and make a determination whether or not the elections were handled fairly” it was okay because if that “pause” took weeks, months or even years Trump had no problem remaining in office for another term or eternity while all those election issues were resolved   And anyway, submitting false sets of electoral ballots was okay because Trump can’t be blamed for following the advice of his kraken lawyers, the ones pushing what his aide Jason Miller called “conspiracy shit from the mothership,” rather than listening to his “too honest” VP Mike Pence or his Department of Justice, excepting of course environmental lawyer and Attorney General wannabee Jeffrey Clark, who together with those kraken lawyers is one of the six unindicted, well unindicted so far, co-conspirators. It’s pretty much been confirmed that Boris Epshteyn, another lawyer, is number six on that list hardly an endorsement of the legal profession. Circling back to Nauta, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team has asked Judge “loose” Cannon to schedule a hearing on whether or not his lawyer, Stanley Woodward, is too conflicted to represent him in the Mar a Lago case.  Woodward has represented at least seven others that Smith’s team has interviewed for the MAL case, two of whom are expected to testify for the government. Forcing Nauta to get a new lawyer will slow down the case but could also put pressure on Nauta to cooperate with the government.  In any case, it’s not clear that Special Jack is all that concerned about slowing down the MAL case since all indications are that he’s pushing for the Washington DC case put on the fast track, and since presiding Judge Tanya Chutkan plans to set a start date rather soon, it’s more likely than not that, he’ll get his wish. Of course, Trump’s lawyers aren’t on board for that, their preference is that it, like the Florida case, the DC case get pushed off as far into the future as possible.  They also want the case moved to Trump plus 40 West Virginia.  Lastly, Mike Pence, who took notes of his conversations with Trump, is finally speaking out possibly because he has no choice, he’s so far down in the polls that pushing his “honesty” may be his only option and in all likelihood, he will be one of the witnesses testifying against Trump in the DC case.

Florida, Florida, Hunter: So now taking AP Psychology is no longer an option for high school students in Florida because the College Board refuses to delete the part of the course that discusses gender identity and sexuality, both verboten subjects for Florida youth.  Also, pushing diversity is no longer a thing in the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the area that houses Disney World. because following directions from Governor/presidential wannabee Ron DeSantis, the Reddy board has slashed the budget for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, hardly a surprise from the Governor who continues to insist that slavery wasn’t all bad because how else were all those slaves going to learn trades?  Having learned little from their $800 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, Fox is once again cozying up to Trump in an effort to get him to participate in the primary debates, the first of which is scheduled to air on Fox because ratings.  And naturally, Republican leadership especially in the House, with Fox and the Murdochs onboard for the ride, continue to push that only real problem is the Biden Crime Family.  To be fair, Hunter is a problem, but despite all the investigations into him and his laptop, the problem is Hunter not his dad.  It appears that what the House Republicans have on Joe Biden is that while watching his son Beau die and in the aftermath of his death, he checked in and spoke with Hunter almost every day. The family first party has a really hard time understanding that.    

 

Rinse, Repeat, Indict 🌻 🌻 🌻

Indictment, Indictment: So Trump was indicted again yesterday, this time for scheming to stay in office for another term or maybe forever by eradicating the results of the 2020 election that he knew he lost. Specifically, he is accused of perpetrating three criminal conspiracies: defrauding the US by using “dishonesty, fraud and deceit” to obstruct the counting of votes and the certification of election results; obstructing the January 6^th certification of the electoral college vote; and, injuring, oppressing, threatening and intimidating Americans in the free exercise of the vote and in having their votes counted.  He was also charged with obstruction of an official proceeding for his “exploitation of the violence and chaos at the capital,” though he wasn’t indicted for instigating the insurrectionists largely because Special Counsel Jack didn’t want to get into a battle over what constitutes free speech.  The indictment cites Trump’s pressuring of state officials to subvert election results; the organizing of fraudulent slates of electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Mexico, where the election results were never in doubt; his attempts to get the DOJ to conduct sham election crime investigations; and the pressure he put on then VP Pence to obstruct the electoral vote certification. Special Counsel Jack’s “speaking indictment” also mentions, but so far doesn’t charge six co-conspirators.  Though the six weren’t specifically named, based on the provided descriptions the consensus is that Rudy Giuliani is the attorney who knowingly spread false claims and pursued strategies that official lawyers wouldn’t; that John Eastman is the attorney who wanted Pence to refuse to certify the electoral results; that Sidney Powell is the one whose unfounded claims sounded crazy even to Trump; that Jeffrey Clark is the DOJ official who pushed others at the DOJ to open sham investigations and pressure state legislators; and that Kenneth Chesebro, is the lawyer who helped devise and then pushed the plan to submit fraudulent electors.  The indictment references one more co-conspirator, a political consultant who helped implement the fake elector scheme.  The NY Post suggests that person could be either the ubiquitous Boris Epshteyn or director of election day activities Michael Roman, but as far as I can tell no other outlet is comfortable identifying the mysterious number six.  Notably the indictment contains lots of quotes from interviews with Pence who appears to have been very forthcoming about Trump’s efforts to intimidate him into cooperation, efforts that included threats serious enough for Pence to need extra secret service protection.  Also notable is that former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is neither indicted nor one of the six co-conspirators, possibly because he’s one of Special Jack’s cooperators?  Naturally, the usual crowd of obsequious Republican legislators and wannabee presidents is saying the usual things, some combination of it’s all Hunter’s fault, Joe Biden should be impeached, it’s all a witch hunt, and we’ll see you at Trump’s next inauguration when he'll announce the disbanding of the DOJ and the FBI.  One more thing, if he hasn’t, already expect Trump to start attacking Judge Tanya Chulkan the DC Federal judge who will be overseeing this case.  She’s Haitian American and was appointed by Barack Obama so the tone of his attacks will be sadly predictable.  Chulkan who has boatloads of experience and has handed down some of the toughest sentences given to January 6^th insurrectionists is no Judge Aileen “loose” Cannon which can’t be making Trump very happy.  As to Cannon’s Mar a Lago purloined document case, newly indicted Mar a Lago shush guy Carlos De Oliveira made his first court appearance on Monday but didn’t enter a plea because he doesn’t yet have a Florida lawyer. Can you spell S T A L L?      

Money, Money, Money:  No doubt Trump is already fundraising off of yesterday’s indictment, or at least trying to, and judging by his growing legal expenses and his unwillingness to spend any of his billions, he needs to. Details of the amounts that he’s spent on legal expenses and other things like the $100,000 plus spent on Melania’s favorite designer were released earlier in the week and Trump definitely has spent a lot on lawyers.  Of course, Trump being Trump, some of his legal expenses relate to his pointless lawsuits, the ones that keep getting thrown out of court including his $475 million defamation suit against CNN and his efforts to get Fani Willis’ Fulton County case, the one from which more indictments are expected to fly shortly, squashed by Georgia’s Supreme Court.  Like Trump, DeSantis’ who has raised lots of money although not as much as he previously claimed, has been burning through his funds at a too rapid pace, because private flights and the like are expensive and flying commercial isn’t his thing.  One guy who has raked in money is RJK Jr.  Would it surprise you to learn that the “Democrat” whose fan base includes Steve Bannon and many other right-wing Republicans has raised $5 million from Timothy Mellon, a Trump supporting Republican?

Timing is Everything:  Yesterday, while most were on indictment watch Fitch downgraded the US’s long term bond rating from AAA to AA+.  They cited the fight over the debt ceiling, the continuing budget fights that will probably lead to a September government shutdown, debt levels and governance problems, specifically citing January 6^th.  The same crowd who want more tax cuts and remain pissed that the US didn’t default on its debt will probably blame Hunter and his laptop for this too.