Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

It’s a doggy dog world.

The revolution will be supervised.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Democrats are back in array!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Some Well-Earned Schadenfreude

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Some Well-Earned Schadenfreude

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Data-rich update from the Washington Post, company paper for the town where national politics is the main industry — [unpaywalled gif link]:

ATLANTA — Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in Georgia on Monday in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an indictment made public late Monday night.

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.

The historic indictment, the fourth to implicate the former president, follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). The probe was launched after audio leaked from a January 2021 phone call during which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to question the validity of thousands of ballots, especially in the heavily Democratic Atlanta area, and said he wanted to “find” the votes to erase his 2020 loss in the state.

Willis’s investigation quickly expanded to other alleged efforts by Trump or his supporters, including trying to thwart the electoral college process, harassing election workers, spreading false information about the voting process in Georgia and compromising election equipment in a rural county. Trump has long decried the Georgia investigation as a “political witch hunt,” defending his calls to Raffensperger and others as “perfect.”…

Willis had signaled for months that she planned to use Georgia’s expansive anti-racketeering statutes, which allow prosecutors not only to charge in-state wrongdoing but to use activities in other states to prove criminal intent in Georgia. The statute is broader than federal law in terms of how prosecutors can define a criminal enterprise or conspiracy.

The indictment alleges that the enterprise “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state [and] acts involving theft and perjury.” The indictment takes an expansive view of the behaviors it alleges were acts “in furtherance of the conspiracy” — including, as an example, at least a dozen instances of Trump’s tweets alleging fraud and other claims. Such details from the indictment quickly drew criticism as potential violations of the defendants’ free speech protections…

Trump has intensified his attacks on Willis and other prosecutors examining his activities, describing them as “vicious, horrible people” and “mentally sick.” He has referred to Willis, who is Black, as the “racist DA from Atlanta.” His 2024 campaign included her in a recent video attacking prosecutors investigating Trump. Willis has generally declined to respond directly to Trump’s attacks, but in a rare exception, she said in an email last week sent to the entire district attorney’s office that Trump’s ad contained “derogatory and false information about me,” and ordered her employees to ignore it.

“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, obtained by The Washington Post. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any. This is business, it will never be personal.”

Still, Willis has repeatedly raised concerns about security as her investigation has progressed, citing Trump’s “alarming” rhetoric and the racist threats she and her staff have received. Willis is often accompanied by armed guards at public appearances, and security at her office and her residence was increased even more in recent days ahead of the expected charging announcement, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive security matters.

Another excellent WaPo story — “4 things revealed by Trump’s Georgia indictment”:

… The indictment features 41 counts — 13 against Trump — and charges against Trump-aligned lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The core of the indictment, a racketeering charge, implicates all 19 defendants.

That brings the total number of criminal charges this year against the runaway front-runner in the GOP presidential primary to 91…

1. The ‘co-conspirators’ do get indicted — in Georgia, at least

The biggest way in which this indictment isn’t like the others? The Trump allies it ensnared.

Those 18 include five of the six unindicted co-conspirators from the federal indictment, most notably former New York mayor and federal prosecutor Giuliani, who faces 13 counts of his own….

2. The indictment focuses on false statements, oaths

A core Trump defense in the federal Jan. 6 case is the idea that he was merely exercising free speech.

But that defense won’t work as easily in Georgia, which has a broad prohibition against making “a false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation … in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government.”…

Another frequently included crime is solicitation of violation of public oath by a public officer. Essentially, this amounts to asking someone to violate their sworn duties, including by asking them to help overturn a legitimate election result. The most notable example: Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) during which he told Raffensperger he needed to “find” just enough votes to overturn the result. Meadows was also indicted over his role in the call…

3. The crimes allegedly went well past Jan. 6

One of the more striking details comes in the 38th and 39th counts — the last charges against Trump — which date to Sept. 17, 2021, nearly eight months after Trump left office.

The charge has to do with a letter Trump sent to Raffensperger in which he enclosed a report alleging that 43,000 ballots in Atlanta-based DeKalb County were not properly handled using chain-of-custody rules. Trump suggested that Raffensperger “start the process of decertifying the election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is, and announce the true winner.”…

4. The political impact might not be the trial

The prosecution of Trump and the others in Fulton County will stand out for one distinct reason: Unlike the federal trials (unless the rules change), it should be televised.

That will seemingly bring a measure of transparency to the high-stakes proceedings and create appointment viewing — just as the House Jan. 6 committee hearings did last year but potentially with even greater numbers…

This clip might be embarrassing, if the widely circulated rumors about Graham flipping to save his own skin are true…

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  2. 2.

    Burnspbesq

    The best line I saw overnight: “Trump is now under indictment in every NL East city except Philadelphia.”

  3. 3.

    Kay

    Another frequently included crime is solicitation of violation of public oath by a public officer.

    That’s a crime in Ohio too.

    Trump suggested that Raffensperger “start the process of decertifying the election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is, and announce the true winner.”…

    They can’t help themselves. They always go too far. Not content with just inventing a pretext to throw out 43,000 ballots, they also want him to “declare the true winner” upon doing so. It’s like they all think they’re great negotiators because they make outrageous demands, when really it’s just clownish bluffing.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    It’s gonna be TELEVISED!

    Georgia law. And it is so needed. They have to see it all for themselves.

    Drip drip drip. We’re the water, and we know they are the rock.

  6. 6.

    Ken

    I find myself actually agreeing with that last Fox chyron, though probably not in the way they mean it. Let’s see what happens when one of the judges calls Trump in for violating his bail terms — or for that matter whether he even gets bail in Georgia, where (if all the internet lawyers are right) he has to convince the judge he won’t interfere with the process. Trump in jail for a few days (or months) would definitely show there’s no double standard at work.

  7. 7.

    Low Key Swagger

    Newt out there calling for the House to defund Smith.  I’m betting there are too many R’s that want to be rid of TFG for that too happen.

  9. 9.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Political media are deeply conventional and rigid people and they can’t adjust to “unprecedented”. Their entire analysis is limited to “THIS is just like THIS other thing” so if it’s not – this habitiual criminal ex President is “like” nothing else –  they’re adrift and frightened.

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    I always found it so odd that people get a deadline like “turn yourself in a week from Friday.”

    Not that they don’t deserve every bit of it.

  11. 11.

    Tony Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    LOL. Sure, Ruth, it’s ‘deeply unfair’ that Trump is being charged in a State Court where a conviction can’t magically be disappeared by a Presidential pardon with all the criming by him and the GOP then consigned to the memory hole.

    That’s their hoped for Get Out Of Jail Free card and Marcus is pissed that Willis is messing with the agreed upon narrative.

  12. 12.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    What is best in life, today?

    To indict your enemies, see them perp-walked before you, and hear the lamentations of their co-conspirators.

  16. 16.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Matt McIrvin: Boy, Ruth Marcus really comes across as, well, just dumb. Not to go all poopy-head on her (dare I say, pile on?), but she doesn’t appear to even understand how the presidential election works, that it’s based on a state-level system, with state law governing for many aspects. Don’t want to be indicted by six separate states? Then don’t commit crimes in six separate states.

  18. 18.

    Joey Maloney

    Even if the judge doesn’t order Trump remanded until trial I will deeply enjoy watching Defendant #1 sit in the courtroom while Willis’ office makes the argument.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    I genuinely do not understand how they think this will work with no accountability. They tried to have ballots thrown out and steal an election. Ruth Marcus thinks that shouldn’t be punished? What if the Mayor of Baltimore did it? Would that change her analysis? How is this even a discussion?

    What if everyone did this? “Looks like we’re losing! Better get on the phone to the election administrators and demand they throw out ballots!”

    If we don’t punish this we’re just surrendering elections – it will spread like wildfire like all of the Trump corruption and bad acts have spread all through the GOP. Holding him to a LOWER standard is also not how it works. Listen to a sentencing on any ordiinary public offocial case- the fact that they are public officials makes it WORSE because they’re in a position of trust and power. Judges ADD time for that, they don’t subtract.

  21. 21.

    Ken

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: see them perp-walked before you

    I wonder if any of the Georgia police will take then-candidate Trump’s advice on how to handle prisoners. I think banging the prisoner’s head on the car roof when putting them in the vehicle was part of it.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    It’s mind-boggling.  In some ways, the GA case is the most compelling of all — less abstract.  Trump and his minions really got their hands dirty in Georgia.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    “Holding him accountable could happen in a number of ways… prison [represses laughter] is obviously is one of them.”

    I always found HRC likeable, but OMG, she is the one I genuinely want to have a beer with. Or a crème brûlée. That is funny AF.

    Come sit by me, Hillary.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    @Ken: Tall Black women from the GBI should take him into custody, and make sure that he doesn’t have his lifts in his shoes, when he does his perp walk.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Isn’t “man bites dog” their whole thing? Weren’t they delighted with how much Trump’s unprecedented obnoxiousness did to grow their audience?

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    talk about how the justice system has been weaponized.

    Idiot. It’s always been weaponized against criminals. Did you not know that?

  33. 33.

    Baud

    I stayed up to watch the Hillary interview. She was on point.  Rachel talked too much for my taste.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anne Laurie: The good guys did not win Watergate though. Nixon got pardoned, stayed out of prison and became a respected eminence grise, and the Republicans got their payback by dominating politics through the 1980s.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I agree.

    lol at “chain of custody” as justification for throwing out ballots, btw. They’re the ones who broke the chain of custody in both GA and MI. They’re the ones charged with “unlawful possession of a tabulator” in MI and “compromising election equipment” in GA. They can’t send their shitty lawyers in to break into election equipment by coercing weak-willed GOP elections workers- that’s against the law. A county commissioner candidate would get charged for that- a Presidential candidate shouldn’t be?

  36. 36.

    Bugboy

    @Kay: What I am mystified about is how well the Republican’t concept of “lie gating” has been perfected, in which they tell an otherwise true story, but get one crucial detail reversed.  Like V.P. Biden “protecting” Burisma, when he was doing the exact opposite.  Like The Defendant claiming that vote counting stops at midnight, or some such happy horseshit.  I had a staffer tell me that the COVID-19 vaccine was different and thus dangerous. Why? Because it was “live” virus. *rolls eyes*…

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bugboy: or how in 2000, George Will kept writing column after column about how Al Gore was stealing the election with “slow-motion larceny”.

  42. 42.

    moops

    Is there any chance that Arizona makes similar charges?  however long and late in coming they would be?

  45. 45.

    Warblewarble

    If senorita Lindsay has flipped to save his pathetic neck, it is most delicious and puts enormous pressure on the co conspirators.

  46. 46.

    LAO

    @Kay: I read the Ruth Marcus opinion piece and I don’t agree with her but she isn’t advocating for not holding the defendant accountable for his criminal conduct in Georgia. Marcus unambiguously states her preference for federal prosecutions over state prosecutions. I get where she’s coming from, federal prosecutions appear less tainted by politics (appearance not reality) and have a less circus like atmosphere.
    I don’t really care and I want to see some accountability regardless of the jurisdiction.

    PS, I’m enjoying the comment section.

  48. 48.

    satby

    @Baud: Rachel always talks too much for my taste.

    Happy 4th Indictment Day, everyone. Debating whether I should bring mimosas to the market this morning for those few sane ones among us vendors to celebrate.

  49. 49.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kay: Not to mention Trump is one of the boys with the Politica Media since Trump’s show was on MSNBC.  I am sure somewhere in the back of their smug little brains they are realizing all the bullshit they are spewing is having consequences and they will be remember by history as just so many Baghdad Bobs rather than the Edwin Murrows they imagine themselves.

  51. 51.

    moops

    Also, I so hope that the judge puts the hammer down on a gag order to everyone in this case, in particular, Trump:  You cannot speak one word of this case to anyone but your own lawyer.  Not one peep to anyone.  When asked you must respond “no comment”.    No interviews, no tweets, no speeches at rallies, no comments to reporters, NOTHING.  You even comment on your chances to anyone other than your lawyer, it is contempt and more charges and even revoking your release and putting you jail to await trial.

     

     

    This is a RICO indictment.  You have to gag everyone from this moment onward.

  52. 52.

    p.a.

    Local news said this makes 91 total counts against tRump across all indictments.  Goddamn with just a little more effort could have been a nice even 100.

     

    One point to make if you have to interact with MAGAts is that tRump has been a piece of shit his whole life, when he was apolitical, Independent, Democrat, and Republican.  But only THEY were so fucking stupid as to vote him into a position of any authority, never mind the Presidency.

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @Baud: One aspect of Trump’s attempted election subversion in Georgia is that the Governor, Lt. Governor and Secretary of State wouldn’t go along. Kemp and Raffensperger did not raise a big fuss; they just consistently said “No” to Trump.

    Georgia’s hard core Trumpers could tell though, and evidently evidently they took their anger at state party leadership out on Senate candidates Loeffler and Perdue. Enough sat out the Jan.5 Senate runoffs for Warnock and Ossoff to win. That dynamic has made Republican leaders run scared ever since.

  54. 54.

    gene108

    The fact that so many media outlets are just playing past this is a testament to how so many have normalized how Trump targets law officials. What he’s doing to target Judge Chutkan & D.A. Willis is horrifying. And should not be ignored.

    This Sherrilyn Ifill “X” can apply to anyone that crosses paths with prominent Republicans, and ends up getting death threats, having to into hiding, etc. as a result.

    It’s just expected that conservative angry white men are going to threaten to kill people, because the Republican ecosystem, from media to politicians getting booked all over cable TV, takes aim at someone that might hurt the Republican agenda.

    Like there’s nothing the MSM could do to highlight how wrong this is.

  55. 55.

    Anyway

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    To indict your enemies, see them perp-walked before you, and hear the lamentations of their co-conspirators.

    hahaha – had to see that again!

    OT – I am always rooting for D SecofStates (rooting for Ds no matter what — but that’s the position to start with in Red states…) Need more D SoSs.  It’s not a partisan thing – they just do their job right, for the most part. very little ratfucking.

  56. 56.

    Joey Maloney

    @Kay: Listen to a sentencing on any ordiinary public offocial case- the fact that they are public officials makes it WORSE because they’re in a position of trust and power. Judges ADD time for that, they don’t subtract.

    Unless they’re cops.

  58. 58.

    gene108

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The Ruth Marcus op-Ed is very clever. It gets a lot of hate reading, comments, forwards via social media platforms, etc.

    Clicks are clicks, after all. No such thing as a good click versus a bad click.

  59. 59.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: The timing of HRC’s appearance on Maddow’s show was both fortunate and unfortunate. On the positive side, it was great that she got to react to the breaking news of Trump’s 4th indictment; no one on earth is more entitled to gloat about it than HRC. On the other hand, I think she was originally scheduled to discuss her recent essay in The Atlantic, which they touched on, but I would have liked to hear more about that.

  60. 60.

    Burnspbesq

    @p.a.:

    Goddamn with just a little more effort could have been a nice even 100.

    Patience. Federal grand jury in DC is still looking at the fundraising. Wire fraud and mail fraud charges could result.

  64. 64.

    Steve in the ATL

    Though I’m hundreds of miles away at the moment, I’ve never been more proud to be a Fulton County resident!

    Well, not since Justin Bieber lived here….

  65. 65.

    jlowe

    Won’t cheer yet until I hear about incarceration. Something about Eisenhower not counting his Germans. . . . What would incarceration look like – losing his phone and house arrest at one of his clubs? Would he keep the Secret Service detail? He could still cheat at golf for all I care just as long as they keep him away from the rest of us.

  68. 68.

    David Chop

    @Low Key Swagger:Newt? Newt who? Newt the guy who hasn’t held elected office in decades, and who left the last public office he *did* hold it IN DISGRACE? That Newt?

    Fuck that Newt and anything he has to say, and fuck the horse he’s sitting on while he says it too.

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

     

    Front page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution 😁😁😁😁

    President Kamala’s Hand (Again) (@myronjclifton) posted at 7:05 AM on Tue, Aug 15, 2023:
    Gonna keep this for my indictment bingo card for convictions + jail time.

    As a gimmie, the two Black ones, Floyd Harrison & Trevian Kutti are FREE spaces cuz you know they’re about to be under the jail. https://t.co/F2YOXxjiAP
    (https://twitter.com/myronjclifton/status/1691420805836480512?t=t1hNHPcgWWISswy_AGXjUg&s=03)

  74. 74.

    Soprano2

    A pundit on CNN – maybe one of TFG’s former attorneys – said “They never play what came after the part of the phone call where he asks them to find votes, where they detail their concerns with the vote”. Well, that was after the official recount and the full state hand recount, both of which found TFG lost; the interviewer didn’t mention that. TFG had exhausted all of his official remedies, that’s why he was asking the Sec of State to “find” enough votes to make him the winner. How is it I know more about this case than the TV pundits whose job is to talk about it?

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @LAO:

    I get where she’s coming from, federal prosecutions appear less tainted by politics (appearance not reality) and have a less circus like atmosphere.

    Thanks for the clarification. I still disagree with her though. The way to make a legal proceeding “look fair” is for it to be fair. It is correct and proper that he be charged under state law if he violated state law. Gaming it out past that is what gets us in trouble.
    It’s the Comey overthinking again and it’s a form of arrogance. The point of a consistently applied process is we DON’T have to use our subjective judgment on what “looks fair” or “will seem” fair to other people. We just follow the process. We’re not in charge of what people think, we’re only in charge of following process.

  78. 78.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @jlowe: There was a question at the press conference about the RICO charge and whether probation might be one outcome. She responded that jail time was mandatory for RICO.‏

    Heard a video yesterday (Michael Popok maybe?) pre indictment hoping that recent witness interference might make it to the list of charges, because that would violate release terms from another case where he was told that committing a new crime WOULD result in jail time.

    Alas, it didn’t. I checked. The witness tampering charges were all old events.

  79. 79.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: How is it I know more about this case than the TV pundits whose job is to talk about it?

    I think you’ve misinterpreted the pundit’s job. It’s not to get facts out there, it’s to get a viewpoint out there.

  81. 81.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Maybe we’ll find out which “high profile individual” hired them to threaten the election worker, Ms. Freeman, and her family. According to an account I read, Kutti threatened Freeman in a police station while a cop’s body cam was recording everything. An indicted person might be willing to cut a deal to get out of that pickle!

  82. 82.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I always said that I had no clue what the laws were about Trump’s bureaucratic attempts to overthrow the election, stuff like fake electors and that phone call.  That they might not be illegal, or might be impossible to prove (in terms of bizarre legal definitions), but if they were illegal, the proof of his guilt was overwhelming.

    So, turns out it’s really, really illegal.  ‘You are totally fucked’ illegal.  That’s a question answered.  Have fun in prison, asshole.

  84. 84.

    lee

    One of the many boogiemen of the GOP is Venezuela. They claim that all of its problems stem from its embrace of socialism (narrator: it’s not). The root of the vast majority of its problems is the corruption of its government (specifically the executive branch) and the complete lack of prosecution/accountability.
    Keep that in mind if you engage with any MAGATs. If they don’t want Trump to be held responsible for his crimes just ask if they want the US to become Venezuela. That usually short-circuits their brain enough to get them to shut-up.​

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @Anyway: I think some of the problems the essay highlighted are real and deserve more attention, but solutions are elusive for sure.

  88. 88.

    Soprano2

    @Ken: It makes me crazy, that’s why I don’t watch TV pundits that often. I kept waiting for the show’s host to bring up the FACT that the call happened after all the recounts and lawsuits were settled, so their “concerns” about the votes didn’t matter at that point because it had all been litigated, but the host said nothing. That meant it sounded like the TFG lawyer had a valid point, when he didn’t.

  89. 89.

    Scout211

    On Trump’s social this morning: a very low-key muted response. But it’s in lower case, so it was likely an aide who typed it.

    I turned off the press conference last night when one of the reporters implied that indictments that were posted earlier in the day by mistake was a conspiracy of some sort.  I guess this is the current talking point for the Trump enablers:  A criminal conspiracy inside the DA’s office.  Ugh.

    So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people Indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney who campaigned and raised money on, “I will get Trump.” And what about those Indictment Documents put out today, long before the Grand Jury even voted, and then quickly withdrawn? Sounds Rigged to me! Why didn’t they Indict 2.5 years ago? Because they wanted to do it right in the middle of my political campaign. Witch Hunt!

  91. 91.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @LAO:

    I get where she’s coming from, federal prosecutions appear less tainted by politics (appearance not reality) and have a less circus like atmosphere.

    Not to be contrarian, but that’s the exact part that she gets wrong. The presidential election is conducted at the state level and is governed in each state by the laws of those states. Yes, there are federal election laws. But if you break a state election law, even if that law is specific to that state, you’ve still broken the law.

    Am I misunderstanding our election laws? This does not appear to be a difficult concept.

  92. 92.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Hillary Clinton: “I don’t know that anybody should be satisfied. This is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes. The only satisfaction may be that the system is working.“

    And, just like that, America was great again.

  93. 93.

    p.a.

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Hillary Clinton: “I don’t know that anybody should be satisfied. This is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes. The only satisfaction may be that the system is working.“

    And, just like that, America was great again.

     

    Yup.  A system relying on Mike fucking Pence to do the right thing is not a working system.

  94. 94.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @rikyrah: Two observations about that front page.

    1. Trump will love it because it’s his name, in huge font size, on the front page, with his photo in the center and much biglier than the others.
    2. What a rogues’ gallery.
  96. 96.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay: ​
     

    Political media are deeply conventional and rigid people and they can’t adjust to “unprecedented”. Their entire analysis is limited to “THIS is just like THIS other thing” so if it’s not – this habitiual criminal ex President is “like” nothing else – they’re adrift and frightened.

    Then they could at least cover this with the same intensity, and the same lack of deference to someone who is/was President, that they gave to their coverage of Clinton/Lewinsky in 1998.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    It’s the Comey error. She’s twisting herself into knots worrying about how she thinks it will “appear” rather than thinking about what it is. They cannot do this. It is this exact thinking that got us here, to where we absolutely HAVE to prosecute or “law abiding”  will have no credibility left at all.

    I am not as sympathetic to Hunter Biden as many here- I think one can be an addict and also a privileged, entitled  asshole who takes advantage of people but the Biden prosecutor has now fallen into the Comey trap. Going after Hunter Biden overzealously based on how it “appears” (or his judgment on how it appears) is exactly as bad and “political” as giving him a pass because he’s the President son. Both are unfair. Both are political. Both are unmoored from process. Hunter Biden is not being treated fairly in the same way Hillary Clinton was not treated fairly because the Biden prosecutor, like Comey, does not have the discipline and lack of ego to just follow process. 

  100. 100.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Kay: I love Hunter Biden. He seems like a good time. And, more importantly, he serves as daily proof that Republicans have no interest in getting corruption out of government.

    If they did, they wouldn’t be wasting time insisting perfectly legal but unethical behavior was a crime or salivating over low-stakes criminal convictions. They would be trying to make the unethical but legal things he definitely did…fucking illegal. But that might limit the career prospects of their own progeny.

  103. 103.

    RAM

    I sure wish people would settle on the actual number of charges Trump is facing. The article at the top of this post says 13.

    But over at Daily Kos, Laura Clawson lists 39:
    1 Violation of the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act
    5 Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
    9 Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
    11 Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
    13 Conspiracy to commit false statements and writing
    15 Conspiracy to commit filing false documents
    17 Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
    19 Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings
    27 Filing false documents
    28 Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
    29 False statements and writings
    38 Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
    39 False statements and writings

    Maybe some clarification will happen later today.​​​​

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Political media are deeply conventional and rigid people and they can’t adjust to “unprecedented”. Their entire analysis is limited to “THIS is just like THIS other thing” so if it’s not – this habitiual criminal ex President is “like” nothing else –  they’re adrift and frightened.

     

    They spent 4 years gaslighting us that the criminality of Dolt45 was on the spectrum of NORMAL. Thus, showing their professional malpractice.

  105. 105.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @rikyrah: [The MSM] spent 4 years gaslighting us that the criminality of Dolt45 was on the spectrum of NORMAL. Thus, showing their professional malpractice.

    Does malpractice law cover news reporting? Let’s a bunch of us get together and take them to court.

  106. 106.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think Hunter Biden has been treated more harshly by the justice system than an average person in the same situation would be treated, because of who he is. He did some sketchy stuff, that’s true, but as far as the investigations have been able to uncover most of it wasn’t illegal.

  107. 107.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    How is it I know more about this case than the TV pundits whose job is to talk about it?

    That regularly drives me nuts too. This is their freakin’ day job, while I spend my weekdays (but only 80 more of those!) being a government statistician, and yet I (along with most of the jackaltariat, of course) know all these basic pertinent facts that they don’t, and go on air to display their ignorance of.

    It’s just a frickin’ game to them. But if democracy loses, the leopards will eat their faces too – a reality that they’d damn well better wake up to before it’s too late.

  111. 111.

    Soprano2

    @lowtechcyclist: Really, how could the host not say to him “All of those concerns had already been litigated and found to be not valid. The official recount and hand recount had already been held, and they both showed that Joe Biden was the winner of the Georgia presidential election. What other concerns do you think they could have addressed at that point? If there were valid concerns, why did the Sec of State turn him down?”

  112. 112.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RAM: ​
     

    You’ve listed 13. I’d ask you where the other 26 are, but I see your confusion. There were something like 41 criminal acts listed in the indictment, and the acts numbered 1,5,9,11,13,15,17,19,27,28,29,38, and 39 in the indictment, which you’ve listed, were the acts that TFG allegedly participated in.

  117. 117.

    Kathleen

    @Ken: PLUS the pundit gets paid A LOT OF MONEY to not know so that in and of itself is justification for Soprano2 not getting paid at all.

    I’m scaring myself here. And I don’t even watch these pundit or so called “news” outlets.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @WereBear:

    If they turn themselves in it is a huge point in their favor. It doesn’t imply guilt, it shows that they have concern for the law, the process, and in some cases it can go/goes a long ways to actually help them defend themselves. They are adults – or they’d be in juvie court. If they act like actual adults rather than obnoxious children like their mentor, they get treated like adults. And while it of course has nothing to do with guilt, it does show actual adult citizenship. That earns one points on most every angle. One is assumed innocent by the law, and acting like an adult shows that one may actually be an adult, not an overgrown, buffoonish, 77 yr old infant.

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