Donald Trump wants Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis tossed off the investigation of Trump's attempt to change the presidential vote in Georgia. He also wants to quash the grand jury report into his actions. He has precisely no good argument to make in either case, but he nevertheless went straight to the state Supreme Court to get it done. It was typical Trump legal overreach, and even though eight of the nine justices are Republicans they were still annoyed by Trump's obvious attempt at an end run around the Superior Court. So they unanimously told him to fuck off with extreme prejudice:
The Court has made clear that a petitioner cannot invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction as a way to circumvent the ordinary channels for obtaining the relief he seeks without making some showing that he is being prevented fair access to those ordinary channels. Petitioner’s claim fails in the light of that precedent; he makes no showing that he has been prevented fair access to the ordinary channels.
....With regard to Petitioner’s request to disqualify Willis from representing any party in any and all proceedings involving him, we note only that Petitioner has not presented in his original petition either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Willis’s disqualification by this Court at this time on this record.
Too bad, Donald. Willis is going to indict you and then you'll have three separate court cases to fight—one for corporate corruption, one for national security violations, and one for election fraud. And maybe even a fourth for inciting the January 6 insurrection. That's quite the variety pack. It's not going to be pretty, but then, you should have thought of that before breaking the law so much. Now it's finally catching up.
I'm still simply agog at the fact that 40% or so of this country thinks this flaming fascist crook is a viable presidential candidate.
He's an Alpha male. He's (supposedly) rich, he has beautiful women at his beck and call, he uses people like toilet paper, and he doesn't let stupid laws or rules stop him from doing what he wants to do. He's what they want to be (or what they think a man should be).
They've invested their personal identity to him. At least 45% of voters will vote for him even if he is in prison.
I'd amend that slightly. He play-acts a blustery alpha male on TV and at the podium (and often enough in real life), but a big part of that act is that he whines incessantly about how he doesn't get any respect-- the Rodney Dangerfield of Alphas.
Between the bluster and the whining he models two sides of what his people identify with. They want to boss everybody else around and tell them off in direct 50s-style language, and they also want to crawl into a corner and nurse their hurt feelings. That duality is what most non-MAGAs have a really hard time with.
He is on board with every other Repub group: anti abortion, anti minority of all kinds, anti immigration, pro gun, low taxes, and zero regulation.
He is also the number one spokesman for the Repubs who think a bunch of liberals are telling them what to do.
Telling them what cars to drive, telling them not to insult LBGTQ people, telling them to respect immigrants, and on and on.
For a person who feels "oppressed" by the liberal majority in some way, he is their dream person, says exactly what he wants, does what he wants. Its what they would do if they could do it without consequence.
The only respite from this jackass is his death. Others will try to pick up the ball, but thank everything and everyone you want to thank that those wannabes do not have Trump's touch. Look at Desantis, same positions, without the touch, and you just see an asshole.
He just plays the "nobody tells me what the F to do" perfectly, and its not an act. The documents issue he's having is 100% because he just did not feel like complying with a totally reasonable request. Everyone thinks there is some other reason to hold on to documents, forgetting that "f off with your documents request" is (a) a reason (albeit a stupid one) and (b) completely in line with Trump's personality. Its like his life goal is to be world class in flipping off authority.
One of the quotes about him which have stuck in my memory is from David Cay Johnston, appearing on C-SPAN in 2016 after the release of his book The Making of Donald Trump: "Donald has no regard for whatever the law is. He does what he wants to do."
This is what I have for so long just failed to understand about how people can like Trump. I have never known of another person to be such a whiny little b1tch. How many times a day does he talk about how unfair things are to him? Who over the age of 5 does not realize how unseemly it is to whine about things being unfair all the time?
And yet I think you have it exactly. This whiny stuff is part of what the Trump worshipers love about him. They simultaneously consider themselves to be strutting alpha males and yet to be unfairly persecuted and Trump somehow embodies this. He is literally the most loathsome person this country has ever produced and he is a god to at least 30% of the country.
“Who over the age of 5 does not realize how unseemly it is to whine about things being unfair all the time?”
If you go to small town America, you’ll find lots of adults who whine about everything being unfair all the time. They just aren’t rich or famous, so nobody cares what they think, not even their own relatives. But they exist in the millions around the country.
I would add that..it's the authoritarianism. A lot of people think the world needs some tough love to force it to get its act together.
Well, see, Jesus had the same problem -- totally righteous yet endlessly persecuted -- so that makes him (and them) just like Jesus!
Yeah, and he's made some comments in that direction, hasn't he? It's almost like he'll come out at one of his rallies sometime with a thorny crown on his wig/implant. It would be so perfect to do at Branson, come to think of it.
30% of them literally think he is a god.
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But isn't this all just a delaying tactic? I don't think they realistically think the Court would go for it, but it's certainly a non-zero chance so why not? Doesn't he now go thru the proper channels and slow things down AGAIN? I realize that the final stick-it-to-you action is a summary judgement but doesn't he just need to find a sympathetic judge and have it tossed? I'm not seeing the huge loss (or even a big FU) to him or his lawyers. He'll just continue to play the victim and his cult will just eat it up.
This filing by Trump did not delay anything; to do that, you'd actually need to have a court case to challenge and therefore toll.
This wasn't a summary judgment -- there was no request for such and there was no case to dismiss. This was a writs of mandamus and prohibition.
This is in Fulton County, being investigated by its DA. There is no sympathetic judge; this is not like the judge shopping in the federal system.
The case cannot be tossed when there is no case.
He can play to his crowd all he wants but it won't stop the prosecutions, and if he pushes them over the edge to act, he will end up with more criminal charges.
The only way to get rid of trump is, unfortunately, via death. He’s not going to prison and there is every reason to think that Americans are happy to see him elected.
He has never won the popular vote. That's one reason to think that Americans are not happy to see him elected.
Unfortunately, we don't actually elect a president. We have an electoral college which means that rural voters and voters in small (mainly Southern) states have a disproportionate influence on who gets to be president. Trump may have twice lost the popular vote but a change of maybe 55,000 votes would've seen him reelected. The electoral college means that we're at the mercy of rural voters.
The distribution of States (including DC) where voters have more power in the electoral college than CA is not as you expect. CA voters rank as most screwed with 732.9 thousand voters per elector. WY has the most advantaged voters with 192.6 thousand per elector or 3.81 times the representation of CA. The rest of the dozen least screwed states (CA comparison) are VT (3.42), DC (3.19), AK (2.99), ND (2.82), MT (2.70), RI (2.67), SD (2.48), DE (2.22), ME (2.15 ), NH (2.13 ), & HI (2.01).
The rest of the dozen most screwed after CA are TX (1.00), NY (1.02), FL (1.02), OH (1.06), PA (1.07), IL (1.09), MI (1.09), GA (1.09), VA (1.10), NJ (1.10) & NC (1.12).
I live in SC (1.29) but my vote doesn't count at all since I vote for Democrats. Trump beat Biden here by 293,562 votes out of 2,476,644 cast.
Voter turn out was only 66% or so in 2020 so I'll just assume they had no preference. So 80 million voted for each candidate and another 80 million didn't give a flip fuck.
And overall population is 330 million. So lots of unregistered and ineligible voters (young, non-citizen, felons etc.) too.
Using rough estimate numbers is deeply misleading.
Biden got over 81,283,501 votes, not 80 million, and Trump got
74,223,975, not 80 million. 66% voter turnout is an historically high turnout.
Mitch Guthman expresses a valid concern. You are expressing pointless negativism . Go out and help Biden win instead of whining.
Mitch is correct. My comment was intended to support my assertion that most Americans would be either happy or ambivalent about another trump term.
I’m realistic. Not complaining, just making an observation.
Well your first observation ... "only 66%" ... would seem to imply that was a low number when in fact it was historically high. And your second observation was just plain false. The realism pose looks disingenuous at best.
Exactly. As long as he emits CO2 he will be a loose cannon smashing into the stout oaken walls of the Ship of State.
This country cannot afford to let the inhuman criminal enterprise called 'Republicans' throw Dumbster under the bus and proclaim itself cleansed of sin. This is not just another d"difficult" moment in American politics, where we muddle through and make it after all. No. If Rethuglicans get away with using Trump's demise as a "look how evil we aren't" shoehorn into politics and business as usual - Republican usual, that is - that will be the end. We don't have time for their assholery any more. Time's up. Either tie Trump around their collective necks and sink them all (or at least enough of them to make the message ineluctably clear), or kiss this world we know and love goodbye.
This isn't 1860, or 1960, or even 2000. It's 2023 and the world is burning. Trump needs to go back down to the abyssal horror he came from holding an aircraft carrier anchor chain wrapped around the neck of every sleazebag, amoral, worthless Republican, or as many as possible. Or maybe we should all just be happy we have the Barbie movie to entertain us in such ineffably American fashion.
"'Republicans' throw Dumbster under the bus"
Don't worry. They are not going to even attempt to do this.
Nope. They are taking careful aim at the party’s foot, but there’s a pretty good chance they’ll miss and shoot themselves fatally.
Apparently in 2019, antiquities from Israel were loaned to the Whitehouse for a Hanukah lighting event, and were never returned. Shocked to hear that they have mysteriously ended up at Mar-a-Lago and attempts to retrieve them have so far have failed. I guess like classified documents, anything giving to that Orange fuckhead, he considers his personal property.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/18/treasures-lent-by-israel-for-white-house-event-stranded-at-mar-a-lago-donald-trump
I would bet money that they're stored in a bathroom somewhere.
Lol. You'd think after Trump blabbed about a top secret Israeli operation that infiltrated ISIS to the Russians *in the Oval Office*, the Israelis would have been a *tad* more cautious about lending him valuable artefacts.
Sounds like a task for Mossad…
Years back, during Bush II (the Lesser), Vladimir Putin visited and toured some kind of Superbowl history museum. At one point, he was handed one of the Superbowl Rings that were on display, and remarked "You could kill a man with this!" (the rings are really oversized and overdecorated).
He never handed it back, and probably still has the ring to this day.
One hopes he hasn't killed anybody with it.
The one thing that gives me a glimmer of hope in this is that Trump has always lived his legal life under the proviso that he could out wait and outspend anyone who came after him.
He's never faced an adversary like the US government who could wait longer and spend more than he could. Assuming he doesn't get the chance to take over the DoJ in two years.
Personally, I'd be happy to see a 2nd term Biden cut a pardon/commute deal, but a harsh one. Agree to commute all his sentences (including getting the governors to agree to similar state deals) in exchange for Congress, including a majority of Republicans, invoking the 14th Amendment banning him from public office by vote. Otherwise, let the MF rot.
I don’t see any advantage to doing a pardon deal with Trump and I’d be willing to bet real money that even if he’s convicted in every case he won’t be looking at any jail time. And being a convicted felon makes no difference to Trump or his supporters in the Republican Party. He can still be elected to the presidency or otherwise ascend to it. Which means that Biden’s got nothing to offer.
As a practical matter, Trump’s in no real danger of suffering any real consequences from his crimes. Being convicted in the most serious criminal case he’s facing at the moment doesn’t carry with it any consequences beyond the “stigma” of being a convicted felon and a conviction in that case is extremely unlikely given that he has the judge in his pocket. The next most serious case is the as yet uncharged one in Georgia which might never be charged and it would be extremely unlikely that a judge would sentence Trump to a Georgia prison.
I’d be ok with a plea deal/pardon as long as it involved a full admission of guilt and a public full apology for lying about the election and an admission that it was decided fairly and that there was no election fraud other than his own. Also a full public apology to President Biden. Also, a return of all documents he has (I’m sure) retained unlawfully. Then, retirement from all forms of public life.
I say this because I know he would never agree to it.
I'd be content with him dying in prison.
They'll lock him in a cell and leave him alone for ten minutes and he'll be completely nuts.
Dead 36 hours later.
My guess is that he's more likely to establish himself as the leader and continue to build up his political base, both inside and out.
If Jack Smith gets an indictment in DC relating to January 6, that would be very serious. Trump’s not going to get a sympathetic judge or jury there. Still, a conviction, even for seditious conspiracy, won’t erode his support within the cult. But among those who voted for him simply because of the (R) on the ballot line — I expect some of those to stay home on November 5, 2024, or perhaps vote a third-party, ‘conservative’ or libertarian candidate, should there be one. They have already drunk too much Kool-Aid to vote Democratic, but throwing away a vote is helpful, too.
"Personally, I'd be happy to see a 2nd term Biden cut a pardon/commute deal, but a harsh one. Agree to commute all his sentences (including getting the governors to agree to similar state deals) in exchange for Congress, including a majority of Republicans, invoking the 14th Amendment banning him from public office by vote. Otherwise, let the MF rot."
There is so much that is wrong with this line of thinking IMHO
He is 77 years old - in 2024 he will be 78 and if he loses then in 2028 he would be 82 !!!
And you think THAT would be some sort of harsh agreement?
Thats not harsh at all !!!!
Besides that MOST of Trumps supporters would be dead by 2028 anyway. The republican party KNOWS this already so any punishment of Trump makes NO DIFFERENCE to them. If they can show the world how "harsh" they can be by stopping an 82 year old man from running for President then whooooooopppppeeeeeeee.
Trump needs to go to jail - NOW. He can come out when he's on his death bed.
It's amazing to me that the old guard standard bearers of the GOP are eerily silent on Trump. It's like they know whats gonna happen.
Not amazing to me — they are hoping the voters will pull their asses out of a crack, so they don’t have to take a stand. Just as they hoped in 2016. And then Director Comey demonstrated why the DOJ policy of not talking about ongoing investigations is a good one — by violating it.
NYC has always had eccentric gasbags who like to strut around and be local celebrities. As long as that's really all he was, and even as a national reality-TV celebrity, he wasn't going to attract all that much legal scrutiny and probably would have been fine just keeping on with his small-timey flim-flams. Things can be different-- and should be-- when you choose to elevate yourself to a national and world level where you're constantly being looked over by people with very different expectations than tabloid editors have.
It's just such a shame (and maybe a dereliction) that the national political media kept missing their chances to dig into his illegalities, and that the law has been so slow. But though the Feds don't usually move fast (and have been especially slow with him) they can be exceedingly thorough. And from what the ex-prosecutors say, they don't charge cases unless they're very likely to convict.
For all of his adult life TFG has followed the legal strategy taught to him by Roy Cohn. Attack, attack, attack. File a plethora of bogus suits and counter suits to tie your opponent up till they can't afford the legal fees to carry the fight any further. I always thought Donald's election as president would be his eventual downfall. All the strategies that worked for a developer/grifter from Queens are not effective for a president (or ex-president). Tactics that were effective in scaring off unpaid vendors and dissatisfied customers are not going to work when the DOJ is coming after you. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy (s).
Like +50! Also, from the former guy's strategies so far, you clearly can't teach that old dog new tricks.