Thursday
Apr252024
The Conversation -- April 26, 2024
The New York Times is live-updating developments in the Trump 2016 election interference case:
Jonah Bromwich: "... the judge, Juan Merchan, makes a scheduling clarification, saying that another hearing to determine whether Trump violated a gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses and others four additional times will be held next Thursday morning. We are still waiting for the outcome of an earlier hearing on the gag order, in which prosecutors asked that Trump be held in contempt and fined at least $10,000."
Bromwich: "one of the defenses lawyers, Emil Bove, resumes his cross examination of David Pecker. Bove apologizes for making it seem yesterday as if Pecker had lied in a conversation with federal prosecutors about whether Hope Hicks had been present for a meeting in Trump Tower. Prosecutors have described the meeting, which occurred in 2015, as central to a conspiracy at the heart of this case. Bove blames himself, saying, 'this was my fault.'"
Bromwich: "Bove now asks Pecker to describe the negative stories that The National Enquirer ran about Trump's 2016 Republican opponents, including Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.... Bove is still trying to convince the jury that Pecker didn't have some special arrangement with Trump: Instead, his publication was doing what it had always done."
Maggie Haberman: "... it's worth calling back to something Trump said when one of the negative Enquirer stories about Ted Cruz, one of his rivals, came out in 2016: 'I did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it,' Trump said at the time. 'Likewise, I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence.'"
Jesse McKinley: "Prosecutors repeatedly object to the defense team's use of 'President Trump' to refer to a conversation in June 2016, pointing out that Trump wasn't president at that point. Justice Merchan sustains."
Bromwich: "Though it's difficult to follow, Bove is making an important point right now about an agreement that The National Enquirer made with Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model whose story about an affair with Trump the tabloid purchased and sought to bury. Prosecutors had tried to suggest that the agreement -- which included a number of different benefits for McDougal -- was made to disguise a $150,000 hush money payment. But Bove is pointing out that it was not a mere disguise: that Ms. McDougal actually did receive the benefits of the agreement.... Bove then seeks to emphasize that McDougal's primary focus was not cash, but the desire to restart her career."
Bromwich: "Emil Bove's voice just got very sharp as he asked Pecker about whether Pecker had made an error yesterday when he said Trump thanked him for catching and killing the doorman's story. 'Was that another mistake?' the lawyer asked, loudly. 'Do you believe that President Trump said that to you as you sit here right now?' Pecker answered so quietly that I couldn't be sure what he said.... Bove is suggesting that Pecker testified inconsistently: in 2018, according to the F.B.I.'s notes, he told agents that Trump had not thanked him at the Jan. 6 meeting. That contradicts what he said yesterday. Pecker had been resisting the implication that he contradicted himself but here, he agrees. Bove is satisfied he's made his point and the jurors are excused for a break."
Bromwich: "David Pecker just did prosecutors a big favor. Emil Bove has been trying to get him to admit that his testimony contradicted something his lawyers told state prosecutors in 2019. The statement in question concerns the all-important meeting at Trump Tower four years earlier, in which Pecker agreed to help suppress negative stories about Trump.... [But Pecker clarified the matter, demonstrating that what his lawyer had said in 2019 was consistent with his own testimony this week.] We've now had several of these exchanges, in which the defense lawyer Emil Bove has tried to catch David Pecker in a contradiction. But Pecker is not playing along, and he is repeatedly disagreeing with Bove. He is fighting back against these attacks and seeming a bit more like the tough tabloid publisher that he used to be. It's hurting the effectiveness of the points the defense is trying to land, confusing matters more than clarifying them."
Bromwich: "Bove concludes his cross-examination, asking Pecker about his obligations in cooperating with the prosecution at this trial. 'To be truthful,' Pecker says, still seemingly in a fighting mood. Then the former publisher adds, 'I've been truthful to the best of my recollection.' Bove sits down."
Bromwich: [On redirect,] "Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, uses Emil Bove's repetition of the phrase 'standard operating procedure' against him, as he points out all the parts of the agreement with Karen McDougal that were not so standard. Pecker agrees with Steinglass throughout as he asks him these questions, hurting the defense's argument."
Haberman: "Steinglass is systematically getting Pecker to lay out the ways in which The Enquirer's arrangement with Trump was sui generis."
Haberman: "... Steinglass ... asks David Pecker about the overlap between The Enquirer's readership and Trump's political base. 'All that base loved reading positive stories about Donald Trump,' Pecker says. 'And when he announced his presidency, going from The Apprentice to running for the president of the United States, our sales increased....' Steinglass sums up their back and forth: 'Running stories about Mr. Trump appealed to your readership.' Steinglass then makes the point that it was not in The Enquirer's best interest to kill the McDougal story, because it would have sold well. But they killed it because doing so helped Trump. 'Yes,' Pecker says."
Bromwich: [After some additional questioning by both Steinglass & Bove, Pecker leaves the stand.] "Susan Hoffinger, the head of the district attorney's investigations division, will question [Rhona] Graff, who is the second witness. Graff was Trump's former assistant at the Trump Organization. Hoffinger, along with Joshua Steinglass, led the team that convicted Trump's company two years ago."
Haberman: "Rhona Graff says she worked at the Trump Organization for 34 years. Her understanding was that Donald Trump owned the company and she worked directly for him.... Graff says her lawyers are being paid by the Trump Organization. This is a running theme with some witnesses close to Trump -- he or his political-action committee have continued to pay their legal fees. Michael Cohen flipped on Trump, partly because the Trump Organization stopped paying his legal fees."
Christobek: "We are now looking at redacted entries from the Trump Organization's computer system that contain contact information for Karen McDougal and 'Stormy.'"
Haberman: "Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, is asking Graff to verify that she compiled records of various items like emails, contact lists and calendar entries.... Rhona Graff testifies that she saw Stormy Daniels at Trump Tower, in the waiting area of the 26th floor, where Trump's office is located."
Bromwich: [Gary Farro is called to the stand.] "Farro was a banker at First Republic when Michael Cohen was seeking to arrange the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen, seeking to get the money together, was contacted by Farro's assistant at First Republic Bank.... First Republic Bank, Gary Farro reminds the jurors, no longer exists. It was seized and sold by regulators last year, one of several banks that were the casualties of bank runs after interest rate hikes."
Christobek: "This material is dry but the prosecutor, Rebecca Mangold, is questioning Gary Farro slowly and deliberately. Farro said that Michael Cohen was eager to connect with him and wanted to open a limited liability company immediately. Farro then took steps to open an account for him and specified with his team that Cohen didn't want addresses on the checks.... At the conclusion of his testimony today, Gary Farro referenced a document showing that Michael Cohen opened a limited liability company called Essential Consultants L.L.C., and indicated that it was a real estate consulting company. The company was later used to pay Stormy Daniels the hush money."
Bromwich: "And now we're adjourned for the day. Trump looks utterly spent as he rises at the end of the long first week of testimony in his criminal trial. As he passes reporters, he grimaces, then glares, putting on a braver face as he leaves the courtroom."
Ana Swanson & Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "Preserving some semblance of cooperation -- and the difficulty of doing so -- was at the heart of a meeting between Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and China's leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing on Friday. It was the latest effort by the rivals to keep communications open even as disputes escalate over trade, national security and geopolitical frictions. Officials in both countries said they had made progress on a few smaller, pragmatic fronts, including setting up the first U.S.-China talks on artificial intelligence in the coming weeks. They also said they would continue improving communications between their militaries and increase cultural exchanges. But on fundamental strategic issues, each side held little hope of moving the other, and they appeared wary of the possibility of sliding into further conflict."
New York Times: "The Wall Street Journal reports that allies of Donald Trump are devising ways of watering down the central bank's independence if he is re-elected president. If true, that change would represent the biggest shake-up in U.S. monetary policy in decades. But it also raises questions about whether such a plan is possible -- or whether Trump's Wall Street supporters would back it.... Among the most consequential would be asserting that Trump had the authority to oust Jay Powell as Fed chair before Powell's term is up in 2025. While Trump gave Powell the job in 2017, he has since soured on his pick for raising rates, and has publicly said he wouldn't give Powell a second term."
Donald Trump Has Been Asking, "Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?" Let's Check. Top News in at NBC News, April 26, 2020: "Prescriptions for two antimalarial drugs jumped by 46 times the average when the president promoted them on TV. There's no proof they work against Covid-19.... The extraordinary change in prescribing patterns reflects, at least in part, the outsize reach of the Trump megaphone, even when his pronouncements distort scientific evidence or run counter to the recommendations of experts in his own administration. It also offers the clearest evidence yet of the perils of a president willing to push unproven and potentially dangerous remedies to a public desperate for relief from the pandemic."
~~~~~~~~~~
The Trials of Trump, Ctd.
The Supreme Accomplices. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court's conservative majority appeared ready on Thursday to rule that former presidents have some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution, a move that could further delay the criminal case against ... Donald J. Trump on charges that he plotted to subvert the 2020 election. Such a ruling would most likely send the case back to the trial court, ordering it to draw distinctions between official and private conduct. It would amount to a major statement on the scope of presidential power.... There were only glancing references to the timing of the trial and no particular sense of urgency among the more conservative justices at Thursday's argument. Instead, several of them criticized what they suggested was a political prosecution brought under laws they said were ill suited to the case at hand."
Marie: The consensus seems to be that the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will twiddle their thumbs till they eventually come up with a ruling that (1) sends the case back through the lower courts and into Trumpy Limbo Land AND (2) eliminates at least some of the charges against Trump. Democracy dies in darkness? Well, only if you figure "darkness" = the Supreme Court's edict against cameras in federal courtrooms. As far as I know, the lights were on at the Supreme Court Thursday morning, and democracy still took a nosedive. My suggestion: the D.C. Metropolitan Police pick up the winger Supremes and charge them with aiding and abetting a massive crime spree. And hold them in the D.C. jail with the other J-6 prisoners. Maybe they can join the choir; I'm sure Alito has a lovely singing voice. And Clarence! That baritone!
MSNBC hosts got to the crux of the hearing in a two-hour special last night. Here's a segment to give you the flavor of the hearing:
Oval Office = U.S. Crime Center. Brent Griffiths of Business Insider, republished in Yahoo! News: "Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was animated on Thursday when she discussed the potential of what could happen to the presidency if the Supreme Court were to grant presidents the sweeping immunity ... Donald Trump is seeking. 'The most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority could go into office knowing there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes,' Jackson said during oral arguments. 'I'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.'... Jackson appeared alarmed that some of her colleagues, especially some of the court's conservatives, seemed more afraid of limiting presidential immunity ... [than of limiting a president's freedom to commit crimes without consequence]."
Rick Hasen: "After a couple of hours of oral argument, it appears that the Supreme Court is unlikely to embrace either Donald Trump's extreme position -- that would seem to give immunity for a president who ordered an assassination of a rival or staged a coup -- or the government's position that a former president is not absolutely immune even for his or her official acts. Conservatives on the Court are going to make it hard to prosecute a former president for most crimes. But they are likely to reject some of the most extreme, insane, authoritarian arguments that were made by Trump's lawyer. The final opinion will likely come closer to the government's position, but it will almost certainly result in a divided set of opinions (which take more time to draft) and a lot of work on remand to rework the results of the case. The bottom line is that Trump is likely to get what he wants -- a further delay of this election subversion case...."
digby: "Today's Supreme Court argument on presidential immunity was profoundly depressing. It really sounded like the majority is persuaded that they must protect criminal president Donald Trump (and any like him in the future) from any kind of accountability for his crimes.... It appears that this court has not been chastised at all by the country's reaction to their radical actions in Dobbs or anything else. So, if they do what it looks very likely they will do, which is to at least give Trump the delay he seeks and possibly upend the constitutional order at his behest, he could get off scott free whether he wins or loses.... Trump is a narcissistic sociopathic criminal. He will gather power-mad zealots with an ax to grind all around him. Don't kid yourself. He will have no limits." ~~~
~~~ Marie: You thought it was bad when the Supremes picked president George W. Bush by stopping the Florida recount? Now they're the David Peckers of 2024, picking the president* before the election by putting their thumbs on the scale. And if, as in 2000, the election is close in a state or states that would decide the national election, what do you think the same Supremes will do? Play fair? Ha!
Ian Millhiser of Vox: "Thursday's argument in Trump v. United States was a disaster for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and for anyone who believes that the president of the United States should be subject to prosecution if they commit a crime. At least five of the Court's Republicans seemed eager to, at the very least, permit Trump to delay his federal criminal trial for attempting to steal the 2020 election until after this November's election. And the one GOP appointee who seemed to hedge the most, Chief Justice John Roberts, also seemed to think that Trump enjoys at least some immunity from criminal prosecution. Much of the Court's Republican majority, moreover, seemed eager not simply to delay Trump's trial until after the election, but to give him extraordinarily broad immunity from criminal prosecution should he be elected once again. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for example, argued that when a president exercises his official powers, he cannot be charged under any federal criminal statute at all, unless that statute contains explicit language saying that it applies to the president." (Also linked yesterday.)
Here's the New York Times liveblog of the Supreme Hearing on the Supreme Immunity of Our Supreme Ruler. (Also linked yesterday.)
Charlie Savage & Alan Feuer of the New York Times have some takeaways from the hearing that will leave you will a sick feeling.
See Akhilleus' entry near the top of yesterday's Comments thread, in which he cites a Rolling Stone article. From the Stone piece: "We already pulled off the heist," says a source close to Trump, noting it doesn't matter to them what the Supreme Court decides now...."
Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "Over nearly six hours of testimony on Thursday, [National Enquirer publisher David] Pecker described how he had helped quash three scandalous stories about Mr. Trump, including by setting in motion a hush-money deal with a porn star, Stormy Daniels. That payment is central to the prosecution's case: Prosecutors have charged Mr. Trump with 34 felonies, accusing him of covering up the payoff to Ms. Daniels.... Mr. Pecker introduced the jury to a dark art in the world of supermarket tabloids, the practice known as 'catch and kill' -- buying the rights to a story with no intention of publishing it. The National Enquirer used the tactic to silence [Karen] McDougal [who has said she had a relationship with Trump] and the doorman with his account of an out-of-wedlock child, which turned out to be false....
"In a powerful moment for the prosecution, Mr. Pecker acknowledged a clear-cut motive for keeping the model's story under wraps: protecting Mr. Trump's chance of winning the White House.... He also acknowledged that it is unlawful for a corporation to spend money that way to influence the election, another pivotal moment in the early days of the trial. (The Federal Election Commission later punished The Enquirer's parent company with fines of $187,000; Mr. Trump's campaign was not sanctioned.)"
The New York Times' liveblog of proceedings Thursday in the Trump 2016 election interference case is here. See yesterday's Conversation for some detailed observations.
Aaron Katersky of ABC News: "A federal judge in New York on Thursday rejected ... Donald Trump's bid for a new trial in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. The ruling upheld the jury's $83.3 million damage award. 'Contrary to the defendant's arguments, Ms. Carroll's compensatory damages were not awarded solely for her emotional distress; they were not for garden variety harms; and they were not excessive,' Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote. 'Mr. Trump's malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people,' he added. 'They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll's health and safety.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, et al., of the Washington Post: "Arrests at pro-Palestinian protests that expanded Thursday to colleges across the country brought the total number of people detained in a week of demonstrations to more than 500, with officials struggling to quell the unrest by clearing encampments and closing buildings. A tumultuous scene and dozens of arrests late Wednesday at the University of Southern California pushed its administration to cancel the school's main commencement ceremony May 10, citing new safety measures that have been put in place after protests there.... In one of the most dramatic clashes, police officers in Atlanta disrupted an encampment at Emory University and faced off with demonstrators while attempting to clear the area. An officer deployed a stun gun at a protester who was being restrained, according to social media video.... The Atlanta Police Department said officers used chemical irritants but denied using rubber bullets in making arrests." ~~~
~~~ Molly Hennessy-Fiske & Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: On Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), called out more than 100 state troopers to clear out protesters planning to occupy a lawn at the UT-Austin campus. "... that decision ... led to dozens of arrests amid dramatic video of riot-clad troopers on campus.... Critics were quick to note ... that Abbott proudly signed a law in 2019 that aimed to protect free speech on college campuses by guaranteeing anyone can protest in common outdoor areas as long as they are not breaking the law or disrupting the regular functioning of the school. That is precisely what those arrested Wednesday were doing, they said." ~~~
~~~ Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: "Columbia University's faculty senate, fearing the repercussions of a censure vote against the school's president, Nemat Shafik, plans instead to vote on a watered-down resolution expressing displeasure with a series of her decisions, including summoning the police last week to arrest protesting students on campus. Senators worried that a censure vote could result in Dr. Shafik's removal at a time of crisis. And some feared that such a vote would be perceived as yielding to Republican lawmakers who had called for her resignation, according to interviews with several members of the senate who attended a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, some of whom requested anonymity to talk about a private meeting. The senate is scheduled to meet again on Friday to vote on a resolution."
Eric Levenson of CNN: "The New York Court of Appeals on Thursday overturned the sex crimes conviction against Harvey Weinstein, the powerful Hollywood producer whose downfall stood as a symbol of the #MeToo movement. The court, by a 4-3 vote, ordered a new trial. 'We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose,' the ruling, written by Judge Jenny Rivera, states. 'The court compounded that error when it ruled that defendant, who had no criminal history, could be cross examined about those allegations as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light. The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Florida. Tara Suter of the Hill: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday his state 'will not comply' with recently unveiled changes to Title IX by the Biden administration. 'Florida rejects [President Biden';s] attempt to rewrite Title IX,' DeSantis said in a video posted to the social platform X. 'We will not comply, and we will fight back.'... The Biden administration on Friday unveiled a final set of changes to Title IX that add protections for transgender students to the federal civil rights law on sex-based discrimination. The changes will take effect in early August."
Maryland. Lilly Price of the Baltimore Sun: " Pikesville High School's athletic director was arrested Thursday morning in connection with an artificial intelligence-made audio clip of the school's principal having a fake, racist conversation. Dazhon Darien, 31, is charged with disrupting school activities after Baltimore County Police say he created the falsified audio recording of Eric Eiswert in January. The audio clip using the principal's voice went viral and was swiftly condemned by the Baltimore County community. The school was inundated with outraged calls and needed an increased police presence and additional counselors.... Billy Burke, head of the union that represents Eiswert, said the principal's family was being harassed and threatened.... Eiswert has been on leave since the audio recordings went public. Pikesville High School has been run by district staff since Eiswert left and the plan remains to keep those temporary administrators on the job through the end of the school year...." ~~~
~~~ Jaclyn Diaz of NPR: "For just a few dollars, anyone can harness artificial intelligence to make audio and visual deepfakes. Stakes are high, but deepfake detection software doesn't always get it right." MB: IOW, we're all vulnerable to this kind of hoax.
Texas. You Have to Punish the Black Ladies. Sam Levine of the Guardian: "A Texas prosecutor will appeal against a court ruling tossing out a five-year prison sentence for a woman who unintentionally tried to vote while ineligible in the 2016 election, an unexpected move that continues one of the most closely watched voting prosecutions in the US. Last month, the second court of appeals, which is based in Fort Worth, threw out the 2018 conviction of Crystal Mason, a Black woman who submitted a provisional ballot in 2016 that ultimately went uncounted. Mason was on supervised release for a federal felony at the time she voted and has said she had no idea she was ineligible. The panel said prosecutors had failed to prove Mason actually knew she was ineligible.But the Tarrant county district attorney, Phil Sorrells, a Republican, announced on Thursday he was appealing to the Texas court of criminal appeals, the highest criminal court in Texas."
Washington. Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times: "The Republican base, it turns out, is now opposed to democracy.... After the candidates left [the state's GOP convention], the convention's delegates got down to crafting a party platform. [Among their decisions:] A resolution called for ending the ability to vote for U.S. senators. Instead, senators would get appointed by state legislatures, as it generally worked 110 years ago prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913. 'We are devolving into a democracy, because congressmen and senators are elected by the same pool,' was how one GOP delegate put it to the convention. 'We do not want to be a democracy.'... Then ... they passed a resolution calling on people to please stop using the word 'democracy.'... The resolution sums up: 'We ... oppose legislation which makes our nation more democratic in nature.'... When people say 'democracy itself is on the ballot' in this election, though, I think this is what they're talking about." Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Westneat seems to be making light of the rubes' dislike of democracy, at least to some extent, but read it in the context of Robert Kagan's WashPo essay, also linked yesterday, and you see how these particular rubes are exactly the people the Founders worried about: those who lacked "public virtue" and had little or no appreciation for "natural rights."
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Reader Comments (20)
I found this segment reassuring, with Chris Hayes expressing very much how I was feeling at the end of yesterday:
https://youtu.be/szWDP5CBtyY?si=BTunMgJna9iPqsIq
@NiskyGuy: Yes, it was a good segment, and Chris Hayes made some very good points: (1) that the wingnut Supremes took that attitude that what was extraordinary was not what Trump did but that he would be prosecuted for it; (2) that the Supremes are so arrogant it doesn't occur to them that government lawyers and judges are anything but political hacks who have to be corrected by the upstanding members of the Supreme Court; and (3) that they have adopted such a cynical and authoritarian 'tude that all they're interested in is power. What is funny about (2), IMO, is that most -- if not all -- of the justices had jobs as political hacks before a president or president* elevated them to divine perfection.
The huge arrogance of the traitor justices on the Supreme Court is surpassed only by the small size of their support in the country at large.
For the first time in our history, five of the six right-wing justices who impose their desires, willy-nilly on the entire population, were appointed by presidents* who lost the popular vote and were confirmed by red state senators who represent a tiny minority of the population.
Look at it this way. Wyoming, with a population of less than 600,000, has two senators, whose power is equal to that of the two senators from California, a state with 40 million people. So Wyoming gets one senator for every 280,000 residents. California, one senator for every 20 million residents.
Red states tend to be far less diverse (mostly white and Christian) but with far fewer residents than blue states, but they have, in effect, far more power in making decisions that affect all Americans.
The Supreme Court is representative of this immense imbalance in power and control, being in a position to institute drastic changes to the country supported by relatively few Americans.
They certainly don’t give a shit about this imbalance, because minority rule has been the goal of the Party of Traitors for decades.
And yesterday, we saw just how arrogant they are, making sure that their guy, a convicted sex offender, con man, business fraud, liar, and insurrectionist, is protected and supported in his attempt to steal back power.
And they’re just getting started.
This one is worth a read or a reread:
https://www.promarket.org/2019/08/08/how-the-supreme-court-is-rebranding-corruption/
Though it needs an update, especially after yesterday's hearing, it seems to me that the conservative (read: crooked) SCOTUS justices have been working diligently to legalize their own corruption.
Anyway
digby on the press pettiness
From Politico
"In Sulzberger’s view, according to two people familiar with his private comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency. Beyond that, he has voiced concerns that Biden doing so few expansive interviews with experienced reporters could set a dangerous precedent for future administrations, according to a third person familiar with the publisher’s thinking. Sulzberger himself was part of a group from the Times that sat down with Trump, who gave the paper several interviews despite his rantings about its coverage…
“All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,” one Times journalist said. “It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.”"
Paul Campos
"Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election, and no possible jury trial has the slightest relevance to that historical fact"
And take that, all you reborn Republican Zionists of convenience!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/24/zionism-seder-protest-new-york-gaza-israel
DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
"For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6.
On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so."
I watched very little of yesterday but heard some on the car radio and could not believe my ears. It was pretty rough to realize that those supposed "Supremes" said the quiet part out loud...It doesn't matter what he did and we will protect him to infinity. What matters to those confederates is that they want to divide presidential crimes into "personal" and professional and then they will know what to charge going forward. Alito was his smug sanctimonious self, and Gorsuck was a miserable phony. Ditto Beer Boy. And Clarence should be out fishing instead of hearing and blabbing anything about these cases. I couldn't tell with the "Chief" or Amy. MSNBC pundits were aghast about it all. They did kill any possibility of dumping the made-up term of "total immunity" that Trump himself invented. In the process yesterday, they erased any doubt about these trumpist "justices." The high court is now forever besmirched, having ruined it themselves. Pity the liberal women and the club they find themselves in...
Would be funny if it were funny.
Here we have that bevy of black robed Originalists reaching into the future for hypotheticals that have no precedent in order to bolster their political predilections and even possibly decide the case before them based on something that doesn't exist.
I'd call that very Original if they hadn't already done it with the Cake Lady who refused to decorate a cake for, oh yeah, no one.
Just hypothetically, as Alito might say:
-- we learned that the prezdet's pardon power is "core" and cannot be second guessed
-- so if pardoning is an official act, the president may be immune from corrupt use of pardons (and btw, we learned that a bought pardon may not be chargeable, but the bribe may be if not done otherwise legally a la Citizen's United)
-- and a coup may be an official act, for which a prezdet can be held criminally liable if and only if (per the petitioner's brief yesterday) said prezdet is impeached and convicted for that act first
-- but earlier, 2017, some people said you can't impeach a prezdet after he's out of office
-- so logically a prezdet should murder enough opposing party senators to preclude a conviction, serially as necessary to control the votes, then pardon those who did the deeds
-- so during his term he can commit crimes and provide for his post-prezdetcy comfort and freedom. If his first crimes are to eliminate key press elements, people won't learn of them.
This is fantastic! Why didn't we think of this earlier?
Do these justices know that we can hear them?
So how about a hypothetical contest?
Oh, don't bother.
Patrick wins every time.
Is black white?
After listening for about 45 minutes (about all I could stomach) to yesterday’s Potemkin hearing (ie, not a real, that is, serious hearing and consideration of the facts in evidence, but a showy thing, like a movie set of an old western town comprised of flats painted to look like a general store, saloon, sheriff’s office, livery stable, with nothing behind them) I kept thinking, as Gorsuch was throwing out hyperbolic hypotheticals, Kavanaugh was expressing contempt for the idea that presidents needed to ensure the rule of law, Roberts was bloviating about inaccuracies in the lower court rulings….
Can you please just answer the fucking question?
Trump didn’t ask “Do I have immunity for SOME things?”
No. He demands immunity for EVERYTHING.
So…can we answer that question? Does he, or does he not have blanket, kingly immunity?
Ohhhh…no…we have to nitpick the crap out of stuff that’s entirely irrelevant. Like Coke Can Clarence demanding to know if Jack Smith’s appointment was legal. Jesus Christ! No one’s asking that! That’s not even before you!
It’s like this.
Is white black? Is black white?
C’mon. It’s pretty simple, right?
Ohhhh…wait. Do you mean white as seen on a color scale, or white as the result of a highly subjective vision. What if the subject were on a spaceship in a different dimension and…a…a thing happened. Yeah, something happened…and, um, all of a sudden all colors looked the same? Huh? What about that?
But we’re not taking about all colors. We’re talking about black and white. Black is the negative addition of all colors and white is the positive addition of all colors. In terms of the optical physics involved, there’s no way you could mix them up.
But, but…you’re being very specific. We don’t want specific. We don’t want facts. What we need is a new test for black and white. Let’s send the whole question back…
Yeah. And like that. And that’s not even an exaggeration. Alito, in fact, SAID “I don’t want to hear about facts.”
They had no intention of answering the question.
One FACT is that these people are not justices. Not judges. Not interested in Justice, or rule of law, or constitutional principles. They’re cheap political hacks. They’re RNC-Heritage-Federalist Society apparatchiks. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
Is black white?
We’ll that depends on who’s asking…Trump? Or Biden?
Exactly.
@Ken W. As you point out, our originalist pals are extremely interested in the past, like especially opinions established during the Spanish Inquisition and therefore venerable -- but viable -- precedent. And now they're also very interested in the future: in fact, Beer Boy Bart opined that the real reason for this case was not the president* but the presidency: the case was "one for the ages," he said.
A period about which they have no interest at all? The present. The here and now. The case that has come before them. Near the end of video in the segment I've embedded above, Rachel Maddow demonstrated how Insufferable Sam "almost comedically" refused to engage on anything having to do with Trump's (alleged!) crimes. When the special prosecutor's attorney repeatedly tried to bring the argument back to, you know, the actual matters at issue in the case against Trump, Alito interrupted to say, "I want to talk about this in the abstract, and, "I'm not discussing the particular facts of this case." No, no, do not confuse us with the facts. We (at least some of us) are the Great Thinkers up here on our grand pedestal, and we must not be sullied with the nitty-gritty of any real-life situations.
This pretense that all the Supremes do is philosophical and theoretical law might be what allows them to justify in their own little minds such outrageous decisions. Dobbs sounds fine to them -- as long as they don't have to think about young women bleeding out in hospital corridors & parking lots. Rubber-stamping the death penalty for someone recently discovered likely to be innocent? No problem! Not going to discuss the "particulars."
It seems clear that if Democrats win in November, the SCOTUS needs a prettty complete overhaul, as in top to bottom reform. They are not adjudicating on constitutional questions following norms, they are legislating from the bench. Not cool.
Maybe another way to describe what's happening at the SCOTUS is that the conservatives (futurists?) are calling balls and strikes in their favorite fantasy baseball games...
@Ken Winkes: No, Ken. They're not just calling balls & strikes. They're fixing the game. Jack Smith, "Out!"
Actually, they're playing Calvinball, a game which can't be fixed, but is whatever you feel it is at the time. Allee allee in free.
3 Scotus Umpires were discussing how they make their calls. The first said, "I call them as I see them." The second, "I call them as they are." Then Chief Umpire Roberts said,
"They ain't nothin' until I call 'em. and then, that’s what they are.”
Not textualists, originalists, strict constructionists, 8 balls, or even seance mediums. The six Supreme Courtesans follow only Willy Nilly - making it up as they go along, as they serve to pleasure their ideological and billionaire masters.
Ps, if there was a Like button on your site, I’d have worn it out long ago.