Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

No one could have predicted…

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Let me file that under fuck it.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The willow is too close to the house.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

The revolution will be supervised.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trump Indictments / Feb 12 Is Here, and So Is Trump’s Appeal

Feb 12 Is Here, and So Is Trump’s Appeal

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Today was the deadline for Trump to appeal to the Supreme Court.  Otherwise, the D.C. trial would start up again immediately.  No surprise that he appealed, or that he waited until the last possible day.  Delay, delay, delay.

Since it seems that SCOTUS is most likely to interfere with the 14th amendment case, you’d think they might let the clear ruling from last week stand.

Now we wait up to another 7 days to hear from the Supreme Court.  If they are smart, they will stay out of this one and let the D.C. trial proceed.

Auto Draft 93

 

If SCOTUS grants a stay, they won’t just be putting a thumb on the scale.  Oh what I would give to have a SCOTUS that could be trusted to do the right thing.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  4. 4.

    waspuppet

    Gosh, you’d think the most innocent man in the history of innocentitude would want his name cleared and achieve TOTAL VINDICATION before he stood in a presidential election.

    You’d also think that at least one person who makes six and seven figures keeping Americans apprised of national politics would point that out. But I guess that would be biased.

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BretH:

    Heh! I was just going to write a comment about how tiresome this all is. Yes, that very word.

    I am SO FUCKING BORED of TIFG. (Here’s where I wish ordinary civilian BJ commenters could embed images, because I have a gorgeous photo of a sleepy bat giving off the biggest yawn you’ve ever seen, and it would be perfect.)

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    Reposted from downstairs:

    So it sounds like Trump’s lawyers are making the case that as long as we run for the presidency, we can avoid facing charges in a court of law.  Sweet.  I’m filing my papers soon.

     CNN Trump asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block a scathing and unanimous decision from the DC Circuit handed down last week that flatly rejected his claims of immunity from election subversion charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

    “Conducting a months-long criminal trial of President Trump at the height of election season will radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their request.

    The DC Circuit’s ruling “threatens immediate irreparable injury to the First Amendment interests of President Trump and tens of millions of American voters, who are entitled to hear President Trump’s campaign message as they decide how to cast their ballots in November.”

    Never mind the criminal charges, won’t the Supreme Court justices think of the voters?!  Tens of millions of them?! 

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @Scout211: What, exactly, is stopping him and his surrogates from blathering nonstop even during a trial?

    Except for gag orders related to the trial, of course.

  13. 13.

    Jackie

    @Alison Rose: 😂

    If they are smart

    You beat me with the exact same snippet and with the same retort! Several decisions they’ve handed down suggest five or six of them are decidedly lacking in smartness.

    I’m forced to hope indignation prevails – thanks to Habba and TIFG implying three of the six owe TIFG proper gratitude for their for-life elevation to greatness.

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    If you look up “vexatious litigant” in your Funk and Wagnals, there’s a picture of the orange traitor who calls Merde-A-Loser his home.

  15. 15.

    TriassicSands

    Immunity? This isn’t about immunity. It’s about whether the President of the United States is royalty and above the law in perpetuity; untouchable no matter what (s)he does as long as (s)he claims the crime was committed in the best interests of the nation. And the question of what is in the best interests of the nation is, naturally, left entirely up to the Emperor president. Unless, of course, the president happens to be a Democrat. In that case, the president is not only not immune from prosecution, (s)he is presumed guilty and actual evidence of a crime is irrelevant.

  16. 16.

    Scout211

    Liz Dye with a great summary of the documents case updates in her best caustic wit.

    Friday’s 37-page primal scream is something else entirely. Sure a reply brief is supposed to reply and not introduce new evidence. And, okay, if you want to get technical, there’s, like, a legal standard for selective and vindictive prosecution and you don’t just get to yaddayaddayadda over it by claiming you’ve made a “prima facie” showing and are entitled to delve into prosecutorial communications. But when you’re a billionaire comparing yourself to Yick Wo, sometimes the legal niceties like basic civil procedure fall by the wayside.

    This morning, the Special Counsel filed a terse motion to file a surreplynoting that THAT IS NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS.

    “Arguments and factual assertions not presented in an opening motion and raised for the first time in a reply brief are not properly before the Court, and the Court should not be asked decide matters that have been neither properly raised nor fully briefed,” they note, omitting to mention that Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Chris Kise are perfectly well aware of this and pressing their luck with a jurist they believe to be firmly on their side (and totally inexperienced).

    The government objects to the use of the motion to argue for selective prosecution “by smuggling this issue into a reply brief.” But if Judge Cannon is going to put up with these shenanigans, the prosecutors would at least like a chance to file a reply, presumably to point out that President Biden consented to a search of his home, sat for multiple interviews with the prosecution, immediately gave back the documents, never ignored a subpoena, never induced his minions to lie, and never tried to delete the evidence — so, no, these two things are not the same.

    Imagine if this case had landed on the docket of literally any other judge …

  21. 21.

    Princess

    I’m always wrong about everything but… I don’t see how they don’t vote for a stay. Leonard Leo’s court doesn’t care about Trump but they do care about one day having a president king in the Franco/Salazar mode. I don’t see them doing anything to mess that up.

  23. 23.

    Alison Rose

    Just vacuumed the apartment (which takes about five minutes in this palatial home of mine) and the cat was up on my bed while I was in the living room, then took off like a shot into the living room when I went into the bedroom. I always feel like I have to apologize to her afterward.

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    I timed this wrong.  I had just talked to Cole and I knew he wasn’t home yet and that he had a lasagna in the oven, so I thought he would post later.  Wrong again!

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    @dmsilev: What, exactly, is stopping him and his surrogates from blathering nonstop even during a trial?

    Silly question. You have to remember, free speech means, “I get to do whatever the hell I want to do with no consequences” in the US Constitution, Donald J. Trump annotated edition.

  30. 30.

    Eric S.

    @Alison Rose: I’m going to be in the “dog” house for a while. I was out of town last week for work. Today, my cleaning lady came. Tomorrow I leave for 3 days in WI for work.

    Newton 😺 and Kepler 😺 will be mad. I’m likely to be grounded when I return Thursday.

  32. 32.

    smith

    @Princess: Even the Dirty Six are smart enough to realize that a president who can with impunity send Seal Team Six to assassinate anybody he pleased could do it to them as well.  If he had absolute presidential immunity, the Supremes would lose all their power and be reduced to mere serfs like the rest of us. Certainly his stooges have been telling them explicitly that they owe him bigly, so they better step in line, which indicates exactly that mindset. I don’t believe they will have missed it.

  35. 35.

    Princess

    @smith: I don’t think they’re that smart, actually. They think they’re gods. They think they are immune, all of them. All nine.

  37. 37.

    patrick II

    If the Supreme finds that Trump is immune that will no avenue at all to curb his behavior if he is reelected. He will be an absolute madman.

  38. 38.

    Eric S.

    @patrick II: If the Supreme finds that Trump is immune…

     

    Biden should lock him up at a black site until December. And put Clarence in the cell next door. Now I disagree with this but if they want to play hardball, throw at their heads.

  39. 39.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: I think once the trial starts in D.C. – whenever that is – there will be no tolerance to public misbehavior by Trump in the courtroom.

    I hope you are right.  My biggest hope, though, is that Biden beats the pants off of Trump in November so that there is no question of magical total presidential immunity ever again.

  41. 41.

    Jackie

    The “REAL” House Speaker is squeezing Johnson’s balls:

    Speaker Mike Johnson signaled that the House will not put the Senate’s foreign aid supplemental on the floor because it is “silent” on provisions to secure the border, Punchbowl News reports.

    In a statement, Johnson said the “mandate” of the supplemental was to “secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world.”

    And, from The Hill:

    Johnson’s rejection of the Senate bill, however, does not mean the package is completely finished in the House.

    Lawmakers could force the supplemental to the floor through a discharge petition, which requires support from a majority of the chamber — meaning bipartisan participation. Democrats have a “ripe” discharge from last year’s debt limit showdown that already has 213 signatures. Five more would be a majority of the chamber.

    Some progressive lawmakers, though, are likely to remove their names from the petition if it is used to move the foreign aid package in protest of the inclusion of aid for Israel without conditions. That would mean more Republican signatures are needed — a heavy lift since signing a discharge petition while in the majority is a significant swipe at leadership.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4464176-speaker-johnson-ukraine-aid-senate-vote/

    Sigh… IF the bill gets through the Senate, I hope Jeffries can borrow some Pelosi magic.

  42. 42.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jackie:

    Speaker Mike Johnson signaled that the House will not put the Senate’s foreign aid supplemental on the floor because it is “silent” on provisions to secure the border, Punchbowl News reports.

    In a statement, Johnson said the “mandate” of the supplemental was to “secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world.”

    These people had a bill that had those provisions in it and they shit all over it

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