If you take out the legal citations, this is damn good writing.
GOVERNMENT’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO STRIKE INFLAMMATORY ALLEGATIONS FROM THE INDICTMENT
On January 6, 2021, “[l]ives were lost; blood was shed; portions of the Capitol building were badly damaged; and the lives of members of the House and Senate, as well as aides, staffers, and others who were working in the building, were endangered.” Trump v. Thompson, 20 F.4th 10, 35-36 (D.C. Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1350 (2022). Yet publicly, the defendant has promoted and extolled the events of that day.
While the violent attack was ongoing, the defendant told rioters that they were “very special” and that “we love you.” In the years since, he has championed rioters as “great patriots” and proclaimed January 6 “a beautiful day.” In this case, though, the defendant seeks to distance himself, moving to strike allegations in the indictment related to “the actions at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.” ECF No. 115 at 1.
The Court should recognize the defendant’s motion for what it is: a meritless effort to evade the indictment’s clear allegations that the defendant is responsible for the events at the Capitol on January 6. I
Indeed, that day was the culmination of the defendant’s criminal conspiracies to overturn the legitimate results of the presidential election, when the defendant directed a large and angry crowd—one that he had summoned to Washington, D.C., and fueled with knowingly false claims of election fraud—to the Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification proceeding.
When his supporters did so, including through violence, the defendant did not try to stop them; instead, he encouraged them and attempted to leverage their actions by further obstructing the certification. Contrary to the defendant’s claims, then, the indictment’s allegations related to the actions at the Capitol are relevant and probative evidence of the defendant’s conduct and intent, and they are neither prejudicial nor inflammatory.
His motion to strike them from the indictment must be denied.
I totally missed Ivanka’s testimony. Is it fair to sum it up as Ms Trump struggles to ‘recall’?
Oh, wait, a quick recap from (fake) Jack Smith:
Summing up yesterday:
Good morning, Ivanka.
Ivanka: I do not recall.
It wasn’t a question.
Habba: I object!
On what grounds?
Habba: I need grounds?
You’re all caught up.
— Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) November 9, 2023
Open thread.
Scout211
Reposting this from downstairs, as this seems relevant here:
I didn’t expect this ruling.
Of course, all high quality judges know that caveats are the way to go to disguise your real intentions, right? LOL. Reconsidering this in March does give her a lot of leeway here.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Ms Trump struggles to ‘recall’?
Well, be fair. It was a long time ago and she’s so busy.
Scout211
And Liz Dye has another commentary up at Public Notice that is a good read, as always:
Trump’s right, the system is RIGGED. In his favor.
A couple of snippets:
Chief Oshkosh
The recap from the fake Jack Smith is a little thin. There was also a portion where Ivanka testified that she had no idea that the Deutsche Bank loan terms were way more friendly to Trump than would have occurred in a regular real estate loan environment. Her answer was odd because up to that point she had followed her previous deposition very closely. However, though her answer to this question seems to clearly be a lie, and so opens her to a perjury charge, it sounds like nobody is interested right now.
Alison Rose
I like to imagine Ivanka sounded like Richard Kind performing Richard Sackler (the opioid asshole) on Last Week Tonight.
OzarkHillbilly
Breaking News: Ivanka Trump has Alzheimers!
smith
Also reposting: This is a ploy to keep delaying the trial until after the election without making a firm decision so she can block Fani Willis from taking the May slot.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Everytime I see her or any of the Orange Fart Cloud’s spawn, particularly in a legal proceeding, I harken back to a fine bit of Betty Cracker’s prose:
Don’t know about y’all, but just as soon as it’s safe to participate in an angry mob, I intend to join one…I want them to have to flee the goddamned country, change their names and undergo reconstructive surgery.
Scout211
For all of us olds, “I don’t recall” is the new “To the best of my recollection.”
Anoniminous
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
There’s well documented links between cocaine abuse and memory loss.
RaflW
Javanka are stone-faced lizard people. They never smile. They never frown. It’s like they’ve undergone full-face botox injections.
IOW, they are 100% untrustable, weird, and I hope they just head off to bask on some rocky tax-haven island and leave us all TF alone!
smith
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes, well TFG and his cabal have a plan for you:
WaterGirl
Someone I read yesterday – maybe Josh Marshall or someone he linked to in one of his writings – admitted to having been previously frustrated that the DOJ focused on the smaller cases first, but was now considering that perhaps all of that served the dual purpose of being groundwork for this case – in some ways just the 1,001 case about Jan 6.
I thought it was super interesting and wish I could go back to it!
smith
One thing I wanted to note about this latest Jack Smith filing: I think this is the first time he’s drawn a bright line from TFG’s plotting to the violence on Jan 6. Up to now, I wasn’t sure if he was going to leave an opening for TFG to claim that he wasn’t responsible for how other people reacted to the Big Lie, just like he’s claiming right now, in his motion to quash Chutkan’s gag order, that he’s not responsible for violent Goobers who act on his threats to witnesses, judges, and prosecutors.
RaflW
@smith: Peter Baker (yes, of the FTFNYT) had a very choice xeet today.
IOW, a guy with many, many pg.1 bylines in the ‘paper of record’ is noticing that Trump’s authoritarianism, which he’s been abundantly clear about for years now, has not gotten much attention.
Huh.
So f’ing disingenuous. Peter’s a g.d. poltroon. Even calling it a signal, rather than a flat-out admission of intent, is so emblematic of how the shit-ass NYT tiptoes around Donny the Hoover.
WaterGirl
@smith: I have read about that in a number of places, and I’m especially glad to see the Washington Post reporting on it. Thanks for the link!
Maybe it’s just me, but if I were evil and I were plotting this stuff, I would not be plotting it in plain sight and shouting it from the rooftops.
I guess it’s all part of the “I could shoot someone on 5th avenue” mentality?
Mr. Bemused Senior
I recall something like that too. This [TPM] isn’t exactly it but it covers the same idea … Smith is citing Jan. 6 cases in his filing.
Josie
@WaterGirl: Right? Hopefully, someone is keeping a folder of all these statements and threats so they can make a truly frightening political ad at the proper time.
ETA: They could tie it to the stupidity of voting for any third party candidate.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: Agree. Plus, all of those convictions serve other purposes, too. Like for one, those were the most violent MAGA Trump supporters and organizations. If they weren’t charged, prosecuted and convicted already, they would be out in public doing the most damage to our institutions and violently causing death and destruction. And would likely foment another insurrection to defend their hero right now.
ETA: edited for clarity.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: That’s why Trump thinks Biden is
pulling the stringsgiving orders to the DOJ – because Trump would do exactly what he is accusing Biden of.sdhays
The write up of Ivanka’s testimony on Daily Kos suggested that her testimony mostly provided a vehicle for introducing pretty damaging documents showing that they couldn’t get a loan until they utterly lied about Trump’s finances to a friendly (i.e. corrupt as f****) rep at Deutsche Bank. That loan was at 2% interest because Trump was claiming he didn’t actually need it and could cover the loan out of his personal wealth.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Yeah, it has real “cheating on your spouse and then accusing them of infidelity” vibes.
Brit in Chicago
@Chief Oshkosh: Yes, and I also heard that having her as a witness allowed various documents to be introduced as evidence. She had no recollection of them (even though her name was on them) but they can now become part of the court’s record. (I get the idea that Ms. James knows what she’s doing; I’ve formed the same impression of Mr. Smith and Ms. Willis. TiFG’s lawyers, not so much—but perhaps they have a heavier burden to lift.)
John S.
@WaterGirl:
Every accusation is an admission.
Scout211
Plus, didn’t they have an email from her that actually negotiated that lower interest rate? Am I remember that correctly?
Ken
I did see this analysis from Elizabeth Lopatto of The Verge:
She was talking about Sam Bankman-Fried’s testimony, but I imagine she could re-use it for “The Defendant” with only minimal changes.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@smith:
Is there anything that can be done to stop her from blocking Fani?
Burnspbesq
@Chief Oshkosh:
A perjury charge is highly unlikely in a bench trial. The path of least resistance for the judge is simply to give the false testimony the evidentiary weight it deserves, i.e., none.
Lying to a jury is a whole other ballgame.
smith
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: If Willis were taking advice from me, I’d say she should use Cannon’s latest confirmation of a May trial date to simply schedule hers in August. There seems to be some consensus that 2-3 months between trials is adequate, so I’d hope Willis would just act on that. However, she hasn’t called me yet, alas
ETA: And for other reasons, I think August would be ideal. TFG will almost certainly then be the official nominee, but his required presence in court will make campaigning difficult. The GA trial will be televised, and with the campaign in the final stretch, people will be very interested, and will tune in. It would be hard to think of a worse scenario for TFG.
cain
@sdhays: JFC – so, at Trump’s level people just take his word for it? If I apply for a loan they look at a bunch of stuff including payment history and what not to be considered for anything. Just stunning.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Yes, it fits perfectly.
It shocked me in my twenties, when I volunteered as an advocate with the local rape crisis group and often went to court with women when their cases were prosecuted, to find the “I didn’t do it” and the “If I did do it, it was consensual” defense being given at the same time!
As in, I rape her, I didn’t even have sex with her, but if I did have sex with her, it was consensual.
StringOnAStick
@Josie: And I hope those truly frightening political ads make a really strong point about how unAmerican this is.
Immanentize
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Federal Judge Cannon cannot block the Georgia State prosecution unless she actually starts the Federal trial in the documents case before D.A. Willis starts the State prosecution.
It is comity! And comedy on Cannon’s part.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, George Washington didn’t steal classified documents from the government, so there is that.
WaterGirl
@Burnspbesq: That’s really interesting. I had no idea!
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Who knew you attorneys could be so useful?! :-)
Besides, being great commenters, of course.
smith
@WaterGirl: Even though WaPo gave prominent coverage to TFG’s plan to basically declare himself dictator on day one, where are the pundits? Why isn’t this getting as much hand-wringing as Biden’s age, for god’s sake? Is it just that this is what we’ve come to expect from the GQP, it’s basically ho-hum, old news?
Jinchi
I thought Ivanka’s schtick was to use ASMR, speaking not quite loud enough for anyone to hear what the heck she’s saying.
Could be a pretty good trick to get out of perjury.
Betty Cracker
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Haha, I had to look that up to recall what made me so angry — and I got mad all over again! The sheer effrontery, the unmitigated gall of those motherfuckers!
cain
The gnashing of teeth of the RNC and everyone else will be melodious. My only guess is that if he’s the nominee, he’ll go to the SCOTUS to claim that all these litigation is political and that they have to be dropped. The SCOTUS at this point should not give candidates new freedoms – otherwise every mobster and crook will be running for president hoping to get the nomination to avoid jail time. Then again, I suppose that is all the GOP has anyways.
how it started: Nixon: “I”m not a crook.”
how it’s going: GOP: “We are!”
Immanentize
@Burnspbesq:
This is generally true. Which is why Trump will never testify in his federal criminal trials. Even if he is not later tried for perjury, if found guilty, Trump will suffer greatly under the sentencing guidelines both for deceptive testimony AND failure to accept responsibility.
To add: perjury can be really easy to prove if one has made prior false statements under oath. The prosecutor need not prove that one or the other, pr even either, of the statements are “true.” Just that they are different about a material issue in the case.
cain
@Immanentize:
She could start it and stop that prosecution and then indefinitely delay the documents case, right?
Another Scott
@smith: They’ve been doing this stuff, and stuff like it, for years. It’s good to see it getting attention, of course, but it’s not new.
E.g. them wanting to throw out civil service employment rules (and make everyone a political appointee) in their Schedule F rules.
Cheers,
Scott.
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl: I had that thought about the excuse they gave for not filing document charges in DC. They said the defense would argue for a venue change because the crimes charged in the indictment happened in Florida, so the defense would essentially say, “no crimes were committed but the crimes happened in Florida.”
Betty Cracker
@smith: Margaret Sullivan wrote a great piece addressing that issue at The Guardian. Link + excerpt:
Amen to every word.
cain
The pundits are more interested in stopping Kamala Harris. The whole “Joe is old” is more about her I suspect than it is about Joe – after all Trump is getting a pass, and even speculation of Manchin running as 3rd party is getting a pass. The only difference is that there is a fairly young bi-racial candidate who doesn’t have any white blood in her at all. (Obama was half white)
So I’m thinking that dictatorship is preferable to these assholes.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I wondered, too! Can you remind us?
smith
@Betty Cracker: It is really frustrating that we have no effective way to hold the media responsible for journalistic malpractice. I know there are people who think the vigorous pushback FTFNYT and WaPo get in their comments sections accomplishes this, but it doesn’t seem to affect their coverage one iota. The intense engagement at that level just gives corporate media a captive target audience for their influence operations.
One would hope that online sources could work around this, but those provide at best a cacophony of wildly differing “facts” and at worst systematic disinformation. We’ve lost the mechanisms we once had — or thought we had — for identifying reliable sources.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Not sure what was in that particular article, as I haven’t read that one yet, but there’s a whole lot that’s new in the articles I have seen.
I thought I had a tab open so I could share a link, but I did not. :-(
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: These guys don’t even care if their arguments are absurd. They are pathetic excuses for human beings.
WaterGirl
@smith: Thank god for places like ProPublica, who are actually committing journalism. Investigative journalism seems like it would be much more fun than being a stenographer.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: It was when Kushner went on Fox News a couple of months into the pandemic and insisted the Trump admin’s response had been a huge success. (Link) Re-reading it reminded me of how scary and weird those times were. I suspect most of us are still dealing with pandemic-related PTSD.
Old School
Deleted.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
And I’m sure the FTF Guardian’s hacks nodded sagely at Sullivan’s common sense account of basic journalistic malpractice while not for one single solitary second acknowledging that the exact same charge can be thrown at them for their appalling behaviour between 2016 and 2019.
Wankers. The lot of them.
Immanentize
@cain: No, because ot is a jury trial. No judge, not even a Trump tankie, would do anything so obvious.
Then again….
MomSense
@Immanentize: Heh!
Betty
Regarding Ivanka’s appearance, it should be noted that the NYT article gave a detailed description of her fashion as well as her lovely flowing blonde hair. All so very relevant.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Oh my god, yes, especially if it was after he had commandeered protective gear for blue states and gave it to ???
WaterGirl
@Betty: ooh, ooh, what color were her toenails painted? //
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: I’ve been saying for ages (about the abysmal political coverage in the U.S.) that the major dailies and networks might get better coverage if they staffed their DC desks with foreign correspondents who are rotated to a new capital every few years. Reporting from foreign capitals tends to be less horse-racy, less access-based and more focused on outcomes, which is what we need in coverage of our own national politics. Of course, that remedy presupposes that the MSM wants to provide better coverage, and there’s no evidence of that.
cain
@smith: We do – it’s called stop watching cable news. Put your money towards media outlets that are doing the right thing.
That includes so called liberal oriented news orgs like MSNBC.
FelonyGovt
@Chief Oshkosh: A friend of mine has some inside information which proves that the adult spawn are lying when they say they had no involvement in the valuations and other financial matters. I imagine Jack Smith’s office has this information…
stinger
@Mr. Bemused Senior: it was a school day!
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: That link of mine is to a bunch of stories on Schedule F at GovExec.com
I’m just saying that even if the story is “new”, we’ve known he and his minions have been scheming about stuff like this for ages. He wants to be dictator, he wants to be able to fire anyone in the federal government who doesn’t do what he wants, he wants to send the DoJ after anyone he doesn’t like, he wants to send ICE to deport anyone he doesn’t like, he wants the Secret Service and NATO countries and anyone else that he interacts with to pay him – personally, and on and on.
We’ve known all this for a very long time. Additional details doesn’t change any of that.
E.g. Politico (from July 2017):
We know that he continues to push boundaries and break norms until people stop him. It’s the story of his whole life.
Yes, it’s good that these stories are in the news. Maybe normies will pay more attention. ;-)
My $0.02.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
Narrator’s Voice: “No, they did not.”
Globally, what has happened to ‘prestige’ News Media outlets is exactly what happened to Jezebel or, if you prefer, what revolutionary coups do in the process of seizing power. The fuckers stormed in with cheque books or guns and turned it all into click-bait propaganda for selling rubbish.
And I’m not sure re what we do about that.
cain
@Betty Cracker: They don’t because they are hooked on horse race cocaine which drives clicks. It’s like their version of reality tv – it doesn’t cost as much and gives a lot of payback. It makes the assumption that Democrats and others will keep the Democracy safe while they can do this shit without consequences. Hell, I think that’s true for the entire U.S. public.
FelonyGovt
@Burnspbesq: Absolutely. I’m an arbitrator, not a judge, but it’s pretty easy to tell when a witness is lying. And then in making your decision you give their testimony the appropriate weight- none.
Jeffro
@Scout211: it’s going to be exciting when, come next May, roughly half of the GOP will be screaming at convicted felon trumpov to drop out of the race for the good of the party and he laughs in their faces.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Half? That is an over estimate.
wjca
The operative phrase being “right now.” No need for a distraction; no reason not to wait until the trial concludes. (Unless the Statute of Limitations is substantially shorter for perjury than for other crimes.)
JPL
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I don’t see that happening unless there are pics of trump with a young boy.
They accept trump warts and all.
Misterpuff
@sdhays:
The loan was at 2% (vs 9%) because Jervanka got the loan on the Rich People Concierge side of the bank, not the Corp Real Estate lending side of the bank (they wanted more documentaion and to charge 9%). The Concierge took the BS smoke and mirrors financial statements and booked it at the (much) lower “Oh You Are A Rich Customer Mr Clampett” 2% rate, which as you said they lied about.
Jackie
@Betty: Someone – maybe on Nicole Wallace’s show mentioned the court sketch artist spent a lot of effort on detail and accentuating her flatteringly.🤮
wjca
Well, any competent judge would know that. But this is Cannon, after all.
Misterpuff
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, Benedict Arnold did that and had to abscond to England. Much like the Orange Fart Cloud will need to abscond to Rooosia.
Jeffro
@Mr. Bemused Senior: let’s see how it shakes out six months from now. He’s at 56% with GOP primary voters right now.
If anything, I’m probably slightly underestimating.
wjca
Not to go all technical or anything. But I seem to recall from a very long ago Anthropology class that “Caucasian” included people all the way from Northern Europe to, and including, India. Not that the people who get het up about race care about details like that. But just sayin’.
wjca
It occurs to me to wonder. Suppose TIFG does (God forbid!) get elected. And decamps to Russia to avoid already decided jail time. Does CJ Roberts travel to Moscow to swear him in? Does he try to serve as President from outside the country?
All kinds of amusing scenarios. Which we hope will never become possible.
JPL
@wjca: trump can step aside for a medical procedure, and VP could pardon him. If the VP decides not to, he’s dismissed when trump regains power.
anyway something like that
wjca
@JPL:
Doesn’t work for state (e.g. Georgia) sentences, however.
Mallard Filmore
Scout211 @ #!: Maybe she was waiting to see which way the elections went before making the call.
Betty
@WaterGirl: Not sure, but her earrings were pearl studs, and she was carrying a black clutch. Didn’t see anything about the shoes though.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty: In principle, I try to avoid commenting on a woman’s appearance, but Ivanka invites it because she obviously cares. It’s sort of like DeSantis invites comments about his height by his reaction, whereas no one comments on Zelensky’s height because it’s obvious his height is the furthest thing from his mind.
Betty Cracker
@wjca: True. I also don’t think anyone who would refuse to vote for Harris because she’s not white would give Obama any credit for being half white. The racists I know don’t think that way. You’re either white or you’re not, according to them.
DMcK
@cain:
They do if they’re looking for a conduit to launder Russian money.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl:
Unless, in fact, the American people want this. And maybe they do. Maybe they’re ready for it.
catclub
A guy in NYC wants to go to England for three months and needs to park his Rolls for three months. Instead, He asks the bank for $10k loan
at 5% interest… but he gives them the Rolls as collateral. He just spent $150 to park his car in NY.
jimmiraybob
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Not to mention having the undue torment and stress of having to arrange child care for her trip to the courtroom. Tyranny! Biden is a monster! ‘Her’ emails!
cmorenc
@Mallard Filmore:
That is my take as well on Cannon’s intent – she wants the start of the documents trial delayed until post-election so she can hedge on the extent she plays it as a hack (if trump wins) vs playing it straight-up to repair her judicial rep (if trump loses in 2024). She hopes to have it both ways by letting the election determine how she goes – in the meantime she will do just enough further hackery to slow the trial until post-nov24 and not bust the bubble on team trump’s impression she leans their way. But that won’t include dismissal or actual fatal handicaps to the fed case, just petty harassment
catclub
I was thinking the terrifying ads of all the fascist stuff Trump says he wants to do on day 1 of his Presidency would appeal to many of his voters. The book “The Authoritarians” has just this theme.
sab
@Betty Cracker: Most MSM people are courtiers not journalists. Their own access to the rich and powerful is the whole point of their careers. They don’t do their jobs the way they do because they have to to survive in their jobs. They do it because the whole point of having their job is to hobnob with the rich and powerful. They want to be in an exclusive club.
JPL
@wjca: If that comes to trial before the election. A local poll shows that most Georgians think he is accused because of political reasons. Fani is going to have to spend sometime convincing the jury otherwise
About 60 percent thought politics played a roll.. There is also some negatives for trump
About 69% of respondents said the charges against Trump are very serious or somewhat serious. About 68% said Trump was wrong to ask Georgia officials to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
JaySinWA
@Matt McIrvin: Polls show that a significant portion of the US does lean authoritarian. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/10/lot-americans-embrace-trumps-authoritarianism/
Another Scott
@catclub: Heh.
But I don’t think that it would work like that. The bank would want the title, not the physical car (they know that taking physical possession is expensive). And there would probably be a penalty for paying off the loan early.
Could be wrong though!
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Betty: Oh god, that’s awful. She’s scum of the earth, do reporters actually think any of us care what she’s wearing?
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: Nope, I’m not buying that.
I think the people who fall for that stuff probably aren’t big thinkers in the first place.
Redshift
@Another Scott:
From Day 1, “drain the swamp” really obviously meant “get rid of anyone who tells me I can’t do whatever I want,” but we had to endure months of chin-scratching of the form “hmm, drain the swamp means fighting corruption, but he sure doesn’t seem to be doing that.”
Betty Cracker
NBC News has a new FAFO report on the New Jersey insurrectionist Gregory Yetman, who went on the lam rather than face charges. He turned himself in to the cops this morning, “dirty and unkempt,” and is now in jail.
USA Today did a report earlier this year about hundreds of wanted members of the mob who had been identified but not arrested. Yetman was one of the un-arrested rioters the USA Today reporters took a closer look at because his actions on January 6 were violent, so they were wondering why the FBI hadn’t rolled him up yet. The report noted that the courts that handle these cases are under strain due to the volume, so the pace of arrests had slowed but the perps could be apprehended any time.
Yetman is an arrogant prick who seemed to think he was getting away with it last March:
But then the consequences of his actions finally caught up. Good. I hope the rest of those thugs are scared shitless.
Pennsylvanian
I just read a link to Business Insider summarizing the newest excuse for GOP losses: Taylor Swift!
Good luck with that assholes. The Swiftie army has NO fucks to give for you.
Are these people ever going to be sentient enough to look in the mirror and ask, what could it possibly be that isn’t winning people over? FFS.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
You are normal and therefore far, far smarter than the average trash can – SFB isn’t now and I’d bet he really never was. How this jackass ever got enough people to vote for him really, really doesn’t say a lot for our school systems and their need to grade people higher than a doorstop so that the elementary school system does not explode from overcrowding.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@catclub:
We won’t get those people anyway. We need to be honest about the stakes.
Jackie
GRRRRRR!
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Are the Federal Courts considered to be essential, if there is a government shutdown?
RaflW
@cain: “the assumption that Democrats and others will keep the Democracy safe while they can do this shit without consequences”
Reporters, editors, publishers etc seem to have no idea (or at least act like they have none) that Trump will get them fired, or shuttered, or jailed as well if he regains power. He’ll absolutely go after them. eg, he turned on Mags Haberman recently, and won’t ever forget that she ‘crossed’ him.
He has no ethical guard rails. None. He’d be much more reckless and brazen than even a Viktor Orban, who at least has to behave in ways that won’t get Hungary kicked out of the EU (itself all too toothless a body, but they could be provoked, I think.)
Gravenstone
@smith: I doubt Willis will give a flying fuck about other Canon’s desires.
RaflW
@Jackie: “We will withdraw jurisdiction from the courts.”
It’s Calvinball, but with the legal system. It’s so blindingly obvious that the GOP is taking a blowtorch to our systems of government, and all of it in service to a deeply unpopular agenda.
Our g.d. media can’t seem to stitch this together coherently, so we have to be the ones to do it.
Jackie
@Pennsylvanian: Here’s the Business Insider link:
https://www.businessinsider.com/far-right-blaming-taylor-swift-gop-election-losses-2023-11?amp
It’s an amusing article – Taylor Swift really has the RWNJs’ panties in a twist LOL!
Oh, and it’s not just Taylor: Barbie gets blamed, too!
TriassicSands
Yeah, but they are probably fully prepared to start fawning all over TIFG and the Republiclowns and they (the media) think that will protect them. It won’t. Emmer didn’t vote to prevent certification of the election, so he was on Trump’s enemies list. Then, when he decided to run for Speaker, he went full-on MAGA cultist, but Trump said (to paraphrase) — It looks like he’s learned his lesson, but you never know, and scuttled Emmer’s candidacy. Once you’ve offended His Criminality, you aren’t going to undo it by bowing and scraping.
The cluelessness of the media is pretty amazing.
dirge
Not quite how I’m reading it.
Granted, at a certain scale, yes, “having money” and “persuading people who have money that you do too, or will in the future” aren’t actually different things. But generally you have to make a pretty compelling case, with real evidence, following established rules.
What I think was going with Deutsche Bank is that they were granting loans for reasons having nothing to do with Trump’s ability to repay, because they were actually acting as a conduit for Russian funds. Since their actual business rationale was felony money laundering, they needed to dress it up as a loan. So they work with Trump to put together an application package that everyone knows is bullshit, then browbeat underwriting into letting it slide.
So it’s probably true that the loan officer didn’t care if the financial statements were true. He can’t ever admit that, though, or he’ll wind up in jail, or worse.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jackie:
I knew they would try something, and they would have to come up with something new because the amendment was phrased to stop previous ratfucking attempts. IANAL, but I suspect the legislature cannot declare that the courts can’t interpret the law. I doubt even the Roberts Court wants to sign onto that precedent.
trnc
Didn’t get a lot of attention? He was literally impeached for doing that.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: They put it right out there in Project 2025 what they want to do, but the press would rather write another story about how old Biden is. It’s maddening, because there’s so much juicy stuff there if only they could bring themselves to talk about it.
AnotherKevin
@RaflW: Amen!!!!! What a remarkable lack of self-awareness, both personally and institutionally.
RaflW
@Frankensteinbeck: But of course we’re all just subject to Republican’s “messaging” problem post-Dobbs. It’s not like they’re being fascist Handmaids or anything.
Chief Oshkosh
@WaterGirl: Moi non plus!
davek319
@RaflW: Baker’s wife is Susan Glasser. She has a “Who coulda node?” Trump bit up in The New Yorker. Like she and her dink husband haven’t made bank normalizing the f*ck outta the Orange Julius Caesar for six years…
sab
@davek319: They are why Inlet my New Yorker subscription lapse after 50 years. I even kept it through the Tina Browne years. I negan reading it in junior high school.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: You are right about that.
Kent
The early onset Alzheimer’s exhibited by the whole Trump clan is concerning, especially for a clan that wants to return to the White House. I mean seriously. Is there nothing that they can remember?
And Trump himself? My God, the dementia is becoming more prominent every day.