Regarding the Future of trump's Library

I saw this cartoon shared elsewhere and decided to hunt it down and share it here. Considering my interests as a librarian and my previous semi-serious consideration about the location of any future trump Presidential Library, I feel this is very apt to share.

Cartoon by Bill Bramhall at the New York Daily News, 
originally issued August 10, 2022

Although, if things end up the way they should with trump in federal prison, the library may well be at the Florence Colorado ADX SuperMax. We would hope.

Hoping for trump's Last Chapter

I like a good detective story myself. Lots of nonsense written, though. 'Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Everyone dumbfounded.' A Real crime - you'd know at once!
-- Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie 

Okay, back to blogging about how much trouble donald "Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice)" trump is this year.

In case you're having trouble keeping track of what trump is in trouble for, Bess Levin at Vanity Fair created a simple list of oh twenty or so criminal and civil cases/investigations/trials. If you can't afford the VF firewall, Mahablog cribbed a cheat sheet for us cheapskates: The list seems to be in order of severity/likelihood of trump getting convicted/held liable. Just to keep it simpler than this, let me just list the big ones:

*The Classified Document/Mar-a-Lago investigation

*The Justice Department investigation into January 6/plot to overturn the election

*Fulton County (Georgia) district attorney Fani Willis’s criminal investigation into election interference

*The Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Case Against the Trump Organization, Etc.

*The New York Attorney General’s Civil Investigation Into the Trump Organization

The biggest questions regarding each of these are: 

1) How serious are the charges?

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime (aka The Smoking Gun)?

3) Will the authorities (US Department of Justice, state attorneys, county attorneys) bring charges and go to trial?

4) What are the consequences if trump is found guilty? 

For what I know, it looks like this:

The Classified Documents at Mar-A-Lago started out as a seeming back-burner issue compared to trump's involvement in the January 6th Insurrection, but when the FBI got a search warrant to recover more boxes of presidential documents earlier this August, this case moved to the top of the list.

1) How serious are the charges? Massive. The fact it had to take a search warrant approved by the US Attorney General and a judge underscores how serious this is. When it was just the likelihood of trump and his handlers violating the Presidential Records Act, it was still a serious matter because there were felonies attached to the deed under 18 USC 2071 (and the possibility trump could get blocked from any future elected office). Bumping this all up to really fucking serious matter are the allegations trump hoarded classified / top secret documents that violate national security matters covered by 18 USC 793, which is putting us into ESPIONAGE-level (we're talking Rosenbergs/Hanssen/Ames level) charges. Along all of this, the warrant specified possible Obstruction charges (where trump may have taken/hidden/destroyed documents relevant to other federal inquiries) are in play with 18 USC 1519, which seems almost like an afterthought.

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? The fact trump had boxes of records taken from the White House still at Mar-A-Lago 18 months after he left - and that he and his lawyers lied that he had kept more - should be clear-cut enough. While trump himself doesn't seem to think what he did was a crime - he kept telling his National Archives contacts that the docs "are mine" - and indeed wants those documents back, the fact is the Presidential Records law spells it out very clear that the documents belong to the federal government (represented by the National Archives). trump's ignorance of the law is no excuse. 

With regards to the other related charges - especially the espionage stuff - it all depends on what the FBI finds among the documents recovered: if there are indeed classified documents including stuff on nuclear security matters (something trump has NO unilateral power to declassify) among what trump hoarded, that's evidence of espionage and we're talking Crime of the Century (atop everything else trump's done).

3) Will the Justice Department bring charges and go to trial? Given how much has already taken place - the months of fighting over the recovery of these docs to begin with, with the escalation to search warrant to underscore how serious this is - we're not talking so much about IF the DOJ will press charges, it's a question of When. It may take months for the FBI to secure all the documents and dust them for fingerprints (part of the espionage matter is determining if uncleared persons had access), as well as interviewing other potential witnesses to anything happening with those docs. 

The government has trump dead-to-rights on violating 18 USC 2071. The more serious matters involving 793 and 1519 are not yet confirmed. But if trump DID violate 793 - even once by sharing classified documents with a foreign agent of any kind - it would be insane for Justice to overlook trump when they've gone after people like Reality Winner who release one measly document as a whistleblower. They'd HAVE to go after trump for mishandling classified info with his level of brazenness. And if they find trump violated the 1519 obstruction, the DOJ would have to pursue THAT because if they don't it will encourage future acts of obstruction against other investigations they're running. 

This is too public a case now: Roll over on any of this and they become trump's bitches like everyone else who've rolled over.

4) What are the consequences for trump if found guilty? Again, it depends on the number of charges the Justice Department will put on the table. Every felony, it should be noted, carries with it fines and jail time: minimum times aren't given, but the maximum for 2071 (b) - the one directly related to trump - is three years; the max for 793 is ten years per count (and from what I've read the Justice guys can use each document (thousands of them) as separate counts!); and the maximum for 1519 is twenty years (again, if Justice can identify separate acts of obstructing, those would be separate counts!). Given the severity of the charges - especially 793 - it is unlikely trump won't get the minimums if found guilty, but he won't get the maximums either due to political optics. It all depends on HOW MANY counts trump will face.

Whew. That was just part one...

The DOJ Investigation Into January 6 not only covers the planning of the riotous insurrection that day, but also the plotting to overturn the election through other means - such as Fake Electors - before January 6 became a last-ditch effort.

1) How serious are the charges? Pretty serious, if there are any to write about. The grand jury - if there is one - into this matter has been tight-lipped, there's been little evidence at all that there's even an investigation until the House Select Committee started referring possible charges back in June from their inquiry to Justice for consideration. What we do know is that the DOJ has been pursuing those rioters who were directly involved in storming Capitol Hill, getting many of them to plead out and testify towards others' involvement, which are signs of laying a foundation of evidence to pursue the higher-ups who planned the attack. The only evidence we have that trump may be under investigation is a subpoena from January 6th prosecutors asking the National Archives (see above) to hand over any documents they may have on the matter (whish may be where the 1519 charges above are heading).

At the least, considering the insurrection itself, trump may be looking at an Incitement charge under the anti-riots law 18 USC 2101, likely under a(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot. A lot depends on what else the Justice Department digs up from other testimony and evidence.

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? The riot itself is pretty fucking obvious. They've used clips from it for a Star Trek episode for Q's sake. The trick is proving any direct link between the rioters and trump, and that what trump did was intentional to cause that crime in the first place.

This is where the House Select Committee's role investigating the Insurrection has been helpful. They've brought in documents and eyewitnesses who confirm trump's behavior leading up to and during the riots to provide evidence of awareness (other people warning him of the illegality of the riot) and intent (his documented behavior, especially his refusal to respond to calls for help for 187 minutes). Future committee sessions are arguably going to provide proof of links between the planners and rioters that could prove criminal behavior

3) Will the Justice Department bring charges and go to trial? Given the severity of the matter - there was almost an overthrow of the entire federal government! - the DOJ dare not sweep this one under a rug. It does not help trump any that he is running again to be President with every sign that he has learned from his mistakes and will seize power earlier - corrupting every legal safeguard in the Executive branch especially the Justice Dept. itself - and more ruthlessly than before.

The argument revolves around what charges the DOJ could bring to the table. The 2101 anti-riot law is the most likely one, but others - such as evidence trump was involved in the scheme to deploy fake electors in battleground states which violates 52 USC 20511 2(b) involving the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held - are of serious enough matters that the people involved - not just trump but the people who agreed to be fake electors and the people who schemed the whole thing - need to be held to account.

4) What are the consequences for trump if found guilty? Again, it depends entirely on what charges end up getting filed. With the anti-riot law, trump would be looking at fines and a five-year maximum. If we throw in the fake electors charges, trump could face fines and another five-year maximum as well. Any other charges would require further review.

Onto part three...

The Georgia Voter Interference affair, a state-level investigation that could also apply federal charges - if pursued - along with the state charges the Fulton County DA can bring to trump and others (for example, Rudy Giuliani was openly named "a target" of the grand jury proceedings he was forced to testify in this past week).

1) How serious are the charges? Serious enough that before the Mar-A-Lago warrant happened, THIS was the legal matter most observers believed was the one trump couldn't wriggle out of. What DA Willis is looking into are the possibilities trump attempted to coerce false testimony from state-level election officials - including Secretary of State Raffensperger - to "find me 11780 votes" (a very specific number that would have flipped the state from Biden) and then provide a slate of fake electors in violation of state law (as well as that 52 USC 20511 mentioned above).

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? This one has the best smoking gun of them all: trump himself on a phone call to Raffensperger where trump lies to him about having other states going along with the ruse, where trump clearly tries to pressure the state official to "find him" those extra votes, and where trump implied Raffensperger and other Georgia officials would be in legal trouble if they didn't help him. If it quacks like extortion and coercion...

3) Will the Justice  Appropriate legal authorities bring charges and go to trial? This is one of those matters where trump is facing state violations for willfully tampering with election results - under this law here and also this law - as well as federal code (again with the 52 USC 20511). Given how DA Willis is pursuing this matter - she's even working to compel Georgia governor Kemp to testify! - this may likely be a serious matter when it passes the grand jury to trial sooner rather than later (although delays by Lindsey Graham - who had applied his own pressures in favor of trump, even though he's not even the Senator from that state - may actually push this investigation into 2023). Whether the DOJ pursues this depends on their other fake electors probes related to the January 6th investigation.

4) What are the consequences for trump if found guilty? The federal charges would be the same as mentioned above for the 20511 code, a five-year max per charge. 

At the state level, trump would be looking at jail time if convicted of a first-degree felony (maximum three years on each count), but merely fines if convicted as a second-degree misdemeanor. The tricky thing is what happens if he's convicted on any of the felonies: Would trump pressure the state's governor - if it remains Republican under Kemp - for a pardon? While the pardon gets him out, it does leave him vulnerable to any civil matters on this, as well as the fact he'd have to admit as part of the pardon deal that he committed the crimes he's accused of (which also admits he knowingly lied about voter fraud and that he lost for real). If trump succeeds in stealing the vote for himself in 2024 after getting convicted in Georgia, the legal ramifications of having trump in state prison interfering with his ability to even show up at Inauguration to take the oath of office would be incendiary at least.

Welcome to the fourth one, Gods for such a lazy man trump has been busy breaking a lot of laws...

Heading up now to New York, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Case vs Trump Organization actually had some fireworks last week.

1) How serious are the charges? It's a little serious, but not as bad as the other matters already mentioned. Mostly because trump himself is not at any severe risk.

In one of those oddities of the legal system, the case getting pursued here filed tax fraud charges on the Trump corporation rather than on trump the person. Even though you would think - logically - that trump as CEO making all the decisions were criminally liable as well.

If any one person was charged, it was the financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pled out last week to many of the charges applied to him. The deal is going to be half-and-half to most observers: Weisselberg will get five months in prison (with some of it served as home arrest, it sounds like) and will make himself available to testify "if the court case proceeds further to trial," but he will NOT testify directly against trump... which is where it gets frustrating. WHO in the end is actually going to be put on trial here?

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? There was enough evidence for criminal charges already made. At least fifteen years' worth of tax filings that trump and company had spent decades hiding from review, and there was enough on Weisselberg to compel a guilty plea from him before trial.

3) Will the Manhattan DA's office (insert Law & Order donk-donk noise here) bring charges and go to trial? This is the good thing: They already have. The charges were filed last year, and this past February the legal attempt to dismiss all charges was overruled (the judge did dismiss one of the fifteen charges). Jury selection on the matter is set to begin October 24 (mark your calendars!). 

The bad thing is, it does not look like the DA in charge - previously Cy Vance, now Alvin Bragg - is going to pursue the matter any further than having the company itself on trial. In spite of anger from some of the assistant DAs - several who resigned in protest - Bragg is worried about pursuing a case if there's not enough evidence to convict trump himself with absolute certainty. Granted, the caution is warranted (when you come at the trump, you best not miss...), but the assistant DAs who pursued the investigation were certain trump committed more felonies. Also, what would happen if during trial more evidence comes to light that trump is hiding more acts of fraud, or if there's perjury involved, or anything similar. Would those matters be pursued if they happen? A lot of this depends on who will actually testify at the trial (would the defense lawyers risk putting trump himself under oath on the stand?).

4) What are the consequences for trump the Organization if found guilty? As things stand, the consequences for trump himself seem non-existent. HE'S not on trial, technically it's his business that is.

Thing is, I cannot tell what kind of penalties a conviction would apply to a legal corporate entity. I'm not a lawyer and definitely not an expert on business law. I'm waiting on word back from people I'm asking about this...

Where the conviction(s) would not look good for anyone associated with the organization - trump and his family members (Donald Jr, Eric, Ivanka, son-in-law Jared) he's kept as his inner circle - it doesn't seem likely any of them will face jail time or direct fines. Weisselberg's insistence to not testify directly against trump may be the shield that saves him. 

But if the corporation is found guilty... There would be definitely fines and financial penalties of some sort. There may be - if severe enough - legal cause to dissolve the company (I would assume): If that happens, what would trump use as a base of his corporate "empire"? Is this Organization an umbrella of all of trump's holdings - his properties, his golf courses, his hotels and office buildings, and so on - and would all of those holdings be vulnerable to something like asset forfeiture? Again, I really need to find out what the actual stakes are.

And, finally... oh this has taken all day to write...

The other New York case, the state Attorney General’s Civil Case against Trump Organization. Different from the Manhattan (county) criminal case - both in the level of investigation and as a civil court matter - AG Letitia James has gone after trump in the most direct way possible, which involved getting the man himself to testify under oath, something the other major cases haven't done (yet).

1) How serious are the charges? Reasonably serious, even for a civil matter where the possibility of jail time isn't certain (but possible). 

Where the criminal case in Manhattan focused on specific instances of tax fraud, the state's case has looked at a larger picture where trump's organization misled tax agencies (both state and federal) as well as banks regarding the values of various properties and holdings. Given the fact that when trump gave his deposition last week he invoked his Fifth Amendment right from self-incrimination over 440 times, we could be looking at that many number of liability counts against trump himself if this goes to trial.

2) Is there clear-cut evidence of a crime? As similar to the Manhattan criminal probe, AG James found enough to justify a grand jury hearing into the whole thing. Given the complexity of the legal code when it comes to business and taxes, there may not be a "clear-cut" proof, but if it can be mapped out to potential jurors then there's a case here.

3) Will the NY Attorney General's office bring charges and go to trial? This is almost a certainty: James has dug up too many items for investigation - at least 440 of them to force trump to zip his lips - to just walk away from the matter. Unlike a criminal case - where DA Bragg has concerns about 100 percent proof before going after trump - in a civil matter the burden of proof for the state is lesser, so AG James is more likely to proceed on some charges of some kind.

An interesting development due to trump's invoking his Fifth is that James could charge trump with more direct liability than he would have faced if he had answered any of the questions. This would mean trump, from what I'm gathering, would have to pay more severe fines out of his own pocket (considering how he's a clown living on credit, this would be disastrous to him).

4) What are the consequences for trump AND the Organization if found guilty? As mentioned earlier, as a civil matter trump may not see jail time. But in terms of money...

Where I have a question about the penalties on a company under criminal charges, with the civil charges it's clear the Attorney General can invoke a "death penalty" on the company if repeated and persistent acts of fraud take place. Considering AG James can well bring 440 charges to the courtroom against trump, that's a noticeable amount of repeated and persistent fraud.

If the trump Organization is fully dissolved, where would that leave trump financially? Again, are we talking about most of his properties getting seized in forfeiture? Are we talking about getting fined to the point where his creditors - waiting on reportedly millions of dollars in loan payments - will bail on him and he can't borrow one more penny?

If there are legal experts with a better sense of what's at stake, I do hope to hear back from them.

So... WHEW. That's the top five major criminal/civil matters trump is facing this 2022.

So about the OTHER fifteen or more...

Just go to jail, trump. It'll make it easier on everybody else.

Where's the FCKING MONEY, Lebow... Oh Wait, I Meant to Say WHERE'S THE FCKING MONEY, RICK "MEDICARE FRAUD" SCOTT?

Lest you think this blog is dedicated ONLY to the misdeeds and grifting of donald trump, Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice), it's been awhile since I ranted about THIS sonofabitch. So let's go.

A development this week - via Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice quoting from the Washington Post - is that deep into the 2022 midterms the Republican Senators running for election are running out of money to pay for things like ads, workers, and donuts:

Republican Senate hopefuls are getting crushed on airwaves across the country while their national campaign fund is pulling ads and running low on cash — leading some campaign advisers to ask where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee’s finances, according to Republican strategists involved in the discussions…

“If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated,” said a national Republican consultant working on Senate races. “The way this money has been burned, there needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered. It’s a rip-off.”

The NRSC’s chairman, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, has already taken heat from fellow Republicans for running ads featuring him on camera and releasing his own policy agenda that became a Democratic punching bag — leading to jokes that “NRSC” stood for “National Rick Scott Committee” in a bid to fuel his own presumed presidential ambitions...

As Betty noted, "Who could have predicted that putting a crook like Rick Scott in charge of the National Republican Senatorial Committee would make all the money go poof?"

I love that anonymous quote "If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated," because that underscores the reality that Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott WAS the CEO of a health care corporation who WAS fired while the company was forced to pay a $1.7 billion fine. The amount of money Rick actually stole for himself - it may have been $300 million - is still in dispute.

While the reality of fund-raising in a post-Citizens United world is wide open for candidates to get their money, the candidates still require some base level of support from their own party to cover a lot of their expenses. Senate campaigning can be an issue due to travel logistics (some states are HUGE and lack affordable transit infrastructure), for example. You gotta be certain you're getting some revenue somewhere, and there's no guarantee the richest Republican backer in your state has enough liquid assets (pocket change) in the moment to hand over (most rich folk are actually wealthy on paper: the money is on the stock market, investments, properties, you know like a Monopoly board. Anyway I digress).

As a result, the party that brung ya - in this matter, the Republicans - has to be well-funded enough at the national level to cover all their priorities, which should be 33 contested Senate elections this cycle (remember, the Senate rotates by thirds for their six-year terms).

And yet, the money's not there.

The other thing mentioned in that WaPo article is how Scott has been spending a lot of the party's money on himself, filming his own campaign spots - even though he's not running this cycle, his so-called buddy Marco Rubio is instead - as though he is the only one who matters. Scott also pushed out - against the advice of other party leaders - a policy agenda for Republicans that was a mix of "Contract On America" calls to patriotism, vague promises of culture war victories, and slashing popular federal social programs like Social Security.

If Scott thinks any of this is going to help him run a Presidential primary in 2024, he's not only a crook he's a goddamned idiot.

There is nothing about Scott that would make him popular or well-liked enough outside of the state of Florida to gain any primary victories down the road. He's not even that popular in Florida. He only won here for pretty much the same reason other Florida Republicans won the last 20 years: the demographics and voter turnout barely favored them over a Democratic state organization that's barely organized.

I said this before about Jeb! Bush (remember him?): 

Jeb! is primarily in politics because of the family name: generations worth of Bushes from Prescott to Bush the Elder to older brother Dubya. Jeb won the governorship of Florida (on his second try) at a time the state was solidly Republican, and even though he tried to hide his last name everyone in state knew where he came from. In hindsight his campaigning showed little innovation or risky stances: It was mostly a thing of fait accompli...

I noted almost the same thing about Marco Rubio:

Okay, I dunno if  you paid attention to the 2010 election, but the thing is Rubio won because A) Crist jumped out of the Republican Party that no longer loved him to run as an Independent, B) Crist and the Democratic challenger Greene kind of split their vote making it easier for Rubio to win, and C) in that Tea Party driven election cycle even a dead dog running for the Republican ticket would have won. Don't go giving Rubio props for a skill he don't have.

These guys - it was also Scott Walker from Wisconsin, whom the Beltway media fell in love with being a Rust Belt Republican (but not much else), and Chris Christie from New Jersey, and so many others - get on the national stage thinking they're charismatic and winning, but they always overlook the reality that they only won at a state level where the dogmatic GOP voting base and questionable Dem turnout gave them the illusion of popularity. When they actually canvass the nation for Presidential hopes, they all (Stop Trying to Make Rubio Happen He's Not Going to Happen) flamed out spectacularly against the juggernaut that was the trump Campaign Grift.

2024 won't be any different. If Rick Scott thinks he can forge a platform to run on, the primary voters don't give a fuck about the issues, all they care about is spiting the Libs. If Rick Scott thinks he can impress the voters, he's got nothing to impress them with. The fact he physically looks like the bastard child of Voldemort and Nosferatu will not help him when he goes campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.

And if Rick Scott thinks he won't be the target of donald trump's bullying - considering how trump dominated the debate stages by ridiculing and mocking everyone else there until they whimpered and rolled over - just wait to see how trump brings up Scott's Medicare Fraud to humiliate him on that. If Scott thinks he can punch back by pointing out all of trump's criminal misdeeds, he is going to anger up the GOP voting base that's already in trump's corner.

I said this earlier: Nothing can stop trump being on the 2024 ticket. Even if he's already faced criminal trials and convicted to jail time, the Republican voters - all of them MAGA, all of them mad - will happily vote for an orange-jumpsuit and orange-colored Shitgibbon.

If Rick Scott thinks he can impress Republican voters by being a Medicare Fraud, he is still laughably an amateur compared to the fraud donald trump's committed for 50 years. And the GOP voters already chose trump.

The schadenfreude on this will cut deep, children.

Republicans Will Vote For a Convicted trump

One of the oddities of the American electoral system is that our Constitution barely spelled out any requirements for the office the Presidency.

All that's needed are that the candidate be of 35 years of age, a natural-born citizen of the United States, and having lived in the United States for 14 years.

There are no other qualifications, like say the candidate having previous elected experience (as a Governor or Senator or Congresscritter), or that the candidate has a college degree of some kind, or that the candidate pass some kind of intellectual competency test.

This becomes an oddity because it leaves open the possibility of some monstrously unqualified person running for - and winning - the office of the President. You could have someone who didn't even finish getting a high school education and shows a decided inability to write and read or even perform basic math. You could have someone who displays open psychological disorders like extreme sociopathy and narcissism (oh wait, we already had...). You could have someone getting elected President while sitting in a jail cell as a convicted felon.

Don't laugh, that almost happened. Sort of.

We've had people putting their name in for the highest office in the land while sitting with their homies in Cell Block D. Victoria Woodhull did it in 1872, running as a protest candidate at a time women weren't allowed to vote or hold office. Eugene V. Debs ran on the Socialist Party ticket in 1920 while sitting in jail for violation of the Espionage Act. Lyndon LaRouche ran for President in 1992 while in jail for tax and mail fraud.

It should be noted none of those examples even had a snowball's chance in hell. Woodhull wasn't taken seriously by the (mostly male) voters and none of them were ready for women to have such basic rights until the 1900s when the 19th Amendment finally passed. Debs - who had the best success among these examples with about a million votes - was running as a Socialist in a place - the United States - that never embraced socialism as a political philosophy even during the Progressive Era of the early 20th Century (much to the dismay of the Bernie Bros to this day). LaRouche was a verifiable conspiracy nut spouting racist and incoherent thoughts, and never garnered any major support even when he tried running on a Democratic Party label.

So why should this even be a problem for us?

Because donald trump, currently facing at least THREE criminal investigations and several civil court trials (one of which - the New York inquiry into tax fraud - could involve jail time), could well be a convicted felon by the time the 2024 election cycle rolls around... and the goddamned Republican Party - with enough base voters to give trump at least 62 million votes and at most 74 million - will likely have trump at the top of their ticket for another shot at the Presidency.

We're going to have a future 2024 campaign where one of the candidates - trump - will be forced to wear an orange jumpsuit while Zooming his debate performance from the Florence SuperMax prison.

I'm not the only one looking at this train wreck happen (again). David Frum is documenting the horror over at the Atlantic (paywall):

...Big-money Republicans hoped that 2022 would be the year the GOP quietly sidelined Trump. Those hopes have been fading all year, as extreme and unstable pro-Trump candidates have triumphed in primary after primary. Their last best hope was that the reelection of Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida would painlessly shoulder Trump out of contention for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Now that hope, too, is dying.

DeSantis ran in 2018 as a craven Trump sycophant. He had four years to become his own man. He battled culture wars—even turning against his former backers at Disney—all to prove himself the snarling alpha-male bully that Republican primary voters reward. But since the Mar-a-Lago search, DeSantis has dropped back into the beta-male role, sidekick and cheering section for Trump.

Trump has reasserted dominance. DeSantis has submitted. And if Republican presidential politics in the Trump era has one rule, it’s that there’s no recovery from submission. Roll over once, and you cannot get back on your feet again...

Or as I like to say it "Once you become trump's bitch you will ALWAYS be trump's bitch." Back to Frum:

Historically, conservatives spoke the language of stability; progressives, the language of change. This summer, however, the Trump Republicans are speaking the language of confrontation, of threat, of violence. Five days ago, Peter Wehner described here at The Atlantic the angry shouts on right-wing message boards and websites. That language of menace is now being used by the former president himself. Allow me impunity or else face more armed violence from my supporters is the implicit Trump warning...

I've mentioned before how terrifying trump is as a political figure: In nearly every situation where a political scandal would bring down an elected official, for some godforsaken reason trump defies gravity and becomes even more entrenched as the standard-bearer for the twisted and broken GOP. In my own words back in 2016:

Here's where my hope turns to despair. For more than a year we've seen Trump campaign exactly in this manner: Shameless, reckless, lying, self-serving, arrogant, noisy, inhuman, insane. Everything he did last night was a greatest hits version of every horror Trump displayed on the campaign trail... and in all those previous disasters, Trump's numbers went up. He kept moving, he kept lying, he kept winning in the worst ways. That shamelessness is key: Most other politicians would never sink to the levels Trump does, because they are actually concerned about their reputation and their futures. Trump doesn't care: He believes his reputation is flawless - hint: it's not - and his soul unblemished, so he continues to behave this way because nobody stops him and because too many people buy into his con game.

The normal dynamics of an election cycle tells us that what happened to Trump tonight would sink any campaign. The law of gravity regarding any single gaffe requires that Trump sinks below his support and fades into zero. But that has not happened to him yet: And after all of the failures and insults and chaos, Trump keeps gaining ground he should not gain. I've seriously begun worrying that either the polls are rigged or that there really are that many clueless voters buying into Trump's scam...

Well, the elections in 2016 and 2020 proved to me there were a lot of voters buying into trump's scam (you may notice I hadn't developed the habit of insulting him by typing his name in lower caps), but it turned out they weren't clueless. Those voters were mostly as spiteful and hateful as he is, and as he granted them license to be that hateful to the world they have sworn him undying loyalty.

It is that shared spite that drives trump's support. To the MAGA voters out there, all of these criminal investigations are not honest efforts to protect our Constitution and our national security: They eagerly accept trump's deflections of them as shams and witch hunts by craven bureaucrats and liberals afraid of trump's "true" popularity and greatness. To these voters, they don't care if trump exposed classified information or violated the Espionage Act, they don't care if trump evaded paying taxes, they don't care if trump has been flushing documents down toilets like he had everything to hide, they don't care if trump has been lying to them for decades. Because to them trump is TRUMP (God/Savior/Emperor) and he can do whatever he likes.

This view among the MAGA crowd is, by the way, open hypocrisy considering how these same wingnuts were screaming - STILL screaming - "But Her Emails" with regards to Hillary Clinton's private server and email scandals... both of which were heavily investigated by Republican-led Congresses and Justice Departments and nothing found criminal. Hillary doesn't break the law and yet the Far Right still screams "Lock Her Up".

For all the fears that when - not if - donald trump finds himself in handcuffs facing criminal charges - be it in Georgia for election law violations, be it in South Florida for espionage, be it in Washington DC for ignoring the Presidential Records Act - that trump's followers will erupt into violence; the equally shocking thing is that even with trump in handcuffs by 2022 and in jail by 2024, the vast majority of Republican voters will still vote for a felon convicted by a jury of his peers.

If there's any good news, it's that trump may appeal to his rabid base but he's not that popular to the general voting public. He lost the popular vote in 2016 when he got 62 million to Hillary by 3 million voters, he only won the Presidency through a broken Electoral College system that favored smaller states. He lost the popular vote in 2020 when he got 74 million to Biden by 7 million voters, which was enough to give Biden the Electoral count as well.

With varying demographic realities - the slow shift to younger Millennial and Gen Z voters who are more liberal as aging conservative Boomers die off - and with the likelihood that enough Independent voters in 2024 will recoil from the reality that the Republican candidate is in jail, it seems unlikely trump can reclaim those 74 million he got in 2020. As long as Biden and the Democrats retain the 81 million who voted for him, trump can't win.

Then again: motherfucking trump defies political gravity (and the Republicans may try to cheat with election results in their GOP-controlled Red states).

Gods help us.

Elections matter, America. If trump does indeed meet justice and is found guilty of his crimes, for the LOVE OF GOD DO NOT ELECT AN HONEST-TO-GOD CROOK TO THE WHITE HOUSE.

Remembering Woodstock '69 in 2022

We're starting to get further away from the original festival of music and arts (and hope), but we need to remind ourselves our nation - the kids, the cops, the bands, the citizenry of Bethel - did okay in a confusing chaotic weekend.

I may go visit the museum in Bethel when I find the time, maybe plan ahead for next year.

In the meantime, some Youtube clips I've scavenged: 

WHAT'S THAT SPELL?

I met a girl who sang the blues/

And I asked her for some happy news/

But she just smiled and turned away...

And as always, a big thank you to Mr. Taggart, Hero of Woodstock Nation.

Always Himself That the Coward Abandons First (w/ Update)

Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.
-- All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

Good Lord, I've been blogging once a day ever since the word dropped that trump finally pissed off the wrong people - librarians! - and I was hoping to take a break from the matter, but during the day THIS popped up on the tweets. Well, originally it popped up on trump's bad attempt at Twitter, but apparently during the FBI warrant search at Mar-A-Lago they also seized three of donald trump's passports (via Meredith McGraw at Politico):

On Monday, the former president announced that the FBI confiscated three of his passports — two of which were active, one expired — during the search of his private residence in Palm Beach last week.

“Wow! In the raid of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else. This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!” Trump shared on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Before you start wondering why one person needs that many passports when one usually suffices:

It’s not uncommon for people to own two passports, especially those who do a large amount of government-related or international business traveling. It’s unclear why Trump’s were taken. Trump is embroiled in a number of complex legal matters though he has not been charged in any of them.

Amid all the drama over the FBI search, Trump had wanted to travel overseas to spend time at his golf resorts in Scotland. The Trump Organization owns three golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland. Trump Turnberry, Trump International Scotland in Aberdeen, and Trump International Golf Links in Doonbeg, Ireland...

It does seems a bit odd that trump would want to travel abroad just as various civil and criminal matters back here stateside are kicking into gear. Hence the near-immediate speculation on social media that trump - with serious criminal allegations involving his theft of records and possible espionage charges related to that - is turning into a flight risk.

Which of course begs the most obvious question: Where the hell could donald trump flee to avoid criminal arrest?

If the situation here in the United States becomes dire for trump, it's likely involving legal woes that would alienate and anger our allies abroad. So fleeing to any of those places - especially Europe where NATO and the EU would reject any sanctuary for trump - is extremely unlikely. If trump thinks he can run and hide in the nations where he owns his golf courses - which is pretty much just Scotland - he's in for a rude welcome (and boot out the door).

Any of the nations who trade extensively with the United States - whose economies rely a lot on that trade - also will not risk the likely sanctions that our government would slap on them the second they find out trump is hiding in their borders. I would think most of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America (even Brazil where a friendly autocrat reigns) will be off-limits to trump.

Basically any nation with an extradition agreement with the United States would be a risky hiding spot. Again, a lot of these nations can ill afford to have an angry American government cutting them off financially to force trump's return.

Granted, there are some nations out there strongly allied to the U.S. who also don't have an extradition treaty, and are in a complex political situation that could disrupt any effort to apprehend a fugitive trump. Most obvious one that comes to mind is Saudi Arabia. Of the nations out there, they provide a key commodity for U.S. interests - oil - and are major allies in geopolitical matters - stability in the Middle East and the containment of Iran. It doesn't help matters that trump and Saudi Arabia are tied together through some questionable business matters including trump's son-in-law getting a $2 billion investment deal with the Saudis... and that Saudi Arabia may be one of the foreign powers that trump may have shopped the national security documents.

But allowing trump to find sanctuary in Saudi Arabia would be a shocking move, and one that would alienate them from not just the United States but other allied nations. It could provide an impetus for anti-Saudi forces in the U.S. - and there are a number of them angry at Saudi human rights abuses and probable ties to anti-U.S. terror groups - to push to cut all diplomatic, military, and financial ties. While it would be a major shock to the global economy, it's one the Saudis may not survive - it would leave them vulnerable to Iran and to their own extremist factions looking to form a more fanatical regime - unless they throw in with the only forgiving superpowers left on the planet (China and Russia).

Which then brings up the few nations where trump could flee: the nations that are in political and economic rivalry with the United States, like China and Russia.

Other nations opposed to us - Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran - may be intrigued with the idea of housing trump to thumb their noses in our general direction. But even they have to know trump brings his own baggage and bad behavior with him, and he may not be worth the headache. Not to mention the possibility that providing trump sanctuary would be a casus belli excusing the United States to invade them (even North Korea with their threat of unleashing their small nuclear arsenal at our regional allies), and force a regime change without even caring to stick around and rebuild once we got trump in irons. Those nations don't owe trump a thing. So they dare not risk it.

But China and Russia could. Any escalation with either nation would stir up a larger global conflict that would well trigger World War III (with a possible risk of a limited nuclear exchange). At best the United States would hit whichever nation gives trump sanctuary with severe sanctions. China would simply treat it like another tariff war, and respond accordingly. The U.S. would arguably suffer from the supply chain cutoffs, and a prolonged standoff may cripple our diplomatic standing across Asia. It would be a question if China is willing to stick their nation's global standing on protecting a man who openly insulted them and who started those tariff wars in the first place.

Russia is currently struggling with heavy sanctions due to their invasion of Ukraine, and would suffer a lot more if the U.S. hits them at every remaining economic soft point we haven't touched yet. NATO and EU nations could arguably join in with more sanctions, and one possibility would be for several NATO nations affected by trump's betrayals - especially France, if the stories about trump holding onto intel files on their President Macron are accurate - could provide more direct military support to Ukraine, hurting Putin's chances to hold onto contested regions. But that's as far as we'd go to force trump out of hiding. Any direct fight with American forces would pretty much lead to nuclear war.

In the meantime, while Putin and his Russian media cohorts have enjoyed using trump to embarrass and destabilize the U.S., if trump does go running to them for safety it would finally confirm the accusations of trump being Putin's puppet all along. It would be embarrassing to Putin to have trump fleeing like a broken asset to his doorstep, and he'd be stuck with someone who is no longer useful to him. The only reason to hide him would be to make sure trump didn't expose any of Putin's ongoing subterfuge in the U.S. and NATO.

There is an honest question if trump would even risk fleeing in the first place: It would expose him as a coward to his followers to where the spell he has over some of them would crack. It would hurt trump's ability to role-play himself as a victim, and would arguably expose whatever is left of his financial empire - which may be crumbling right now as I type this - to judicial actions like asset forfeiture (make him broke enough that he has no way to buy his protection overseas).

But for all of trump's bluster and bravado, trump is still a coward at heart. This is a guy who happily dodged the draft with "bone spurs" and then went golfing. This is a guy who sets up his underlings to fight each other for his amusement but then get someone else to do the firing for him when those underlings are no longer useful. This is a guy who hid in the White House basement when protestors showed up outside, and then had the National Guard disperse the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets so he could pose at a nearby church for a photo op once it was safe to do so. If you think it was bravery that got trump demanding to his protection detail to take him to the Capitol riots on January 6, he was likely going to watch safely from the Secret Service vehicle and pose on the edge of the skirmish for another photo op when the smoke cleared.

Confronted with the possibility of the worst photo op of all - getting dragged before the cameras outside of Mar-A-Lago in handcuffs on whichever felony charge reaches him first - trump would arguably flee for his life and lie about it from the safety of a foreign shore.

All he really needs is a private jet fueled nearby and a thirty-minute head start. trump will take it, because his cowardice will get the better of him.

Update 8/18: According to reports, the FBI returned the passports to trump's people... but they did so before trump even railed about it happening, which comes across as a blatant attempt by trump to make himself the victim (again) over something that wasn't even an issue. Still, we're looking at the possibility of trump being a flight risk if the investigations reveal his actions.

Setting It Off as trump's Followers Cross One More Line (w/ Update)

Update 8/16: Many thanks again to Tengrain for including this article in Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please take some time to review the other stuff that's got me ranting all week long...

Just noting for the record, I feel sympathy for the poor guy who has to manage the Wikipedia page on donald trump's ongoing civil matters. It is interesting to note the web encyclopedia made all the criminal investigations into separate pages, but still at any moment the way things are going there's bound to be two to three new civil court filings by now.

Speaking of, if you're looking for the stuff on "trump espionage" it's actually under "FBI Search of Mar-A-Lago," have fun.

In the meanwhile, this weekend post-warranted search has seen a bit of uneasy response from the Far Right regarding donald trump's pending troubles involving the theft of Presidential Records (18 USC 2071), destruction / obstruction of records involving federal investigations (18 USC 1519), and possible espionage (18 USC 793).

In that acts of violence took place, committed by likely MAGA true believers triggered by the news that their Lord and Savior donald trump is facing serious legal trouble he can't lie his way out of.

On Thursday, a gunman attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati with both a nail gun and an AR-15 rifle, then fled the scene and chased into another county before one last shootout killed him. More details from Elisha Fieldstadt, Ken Dilanian, Tim Stelloh and Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News:

Officers fatally shot the suspect (Walter Shiffer) after failing to negotiate with him, an Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesman, Lt. Nathan Dennis, told reporters.

The man raised a gun and officers opened fire, Dennis said.

It wasn't clear whether he fired, Dennis said, nor was it clear who fired the fatal shot. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, which Dennis described as a rural area off Interstate 71.

No officers were injured, and a motive is still under investigation, Dennis said.

The two officials said Shiffer appeared to have posted in recent days about his desire to kill FBI agents after former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence was searched...

Shiffer was seen at the Capitol on Jan. 6, although it's unclear whether he breached the building, said three people aiding law enforcement who saw him in photos. Shiffer frequently posted about going to the Capitol on social media.

In the days after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump's compound in Palm Beach, Florida, he appeared to post multiple times on Trump's social media platform, Truth Social.

In one comment, he appeared to call on people to prepare for "combat." In another, his apparent account said users should kill FBI agents "on sight..."

Brian Murphy, a former official at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI who’s now an executive at the open source intelligence firm Logically, said Wednesday that his company has observed a big rise in threats against FBI personnel and facilities on social media platforms since the FBI searched Trump's home...

And there's the doxxing attempts by media agitators especially Breitbart's media outlet - which received an unredacted copy of the search warrant from trump's people that included the names of the FBI agents overseeing the search - and a former aide to trump Garrett Ziegler who named those agents and issued threats bad enough that trump's own version of Twitter (Truth Social) had to delete his posts (via Alia Shoaib at Business Insider):

"This is one of the two feds who signed the 'Receipt for Property' form, which detailed—at a very high level—the fishing expedition that the FBI performed at Mar-a-Lago," Ziegler wrote on both Truth Social and Telegram, per the outlet.

Along with the message, Ziegler shared the FBI agents' date of birth, work emails, and supposed links to family members' social media accounts, according to the outlet...

As anyone who pays attention to domestic terrorism activity, what Ziegler did crosses into the threshold of stochastic terrorism. Ziegler claims he's providing "transparency" about "illegal FBI actions" but why the hell drag those agents' families into this mess?

(Saturday night, there was a suicidal car driver who slammed into a Capitol building barricade and shot himself as his car burst into flames. Until the police can find out if the guy had a motive, this is as much as should be said about it)

Not to mention the armed people protesting outside of an Arizona FBI field office on Saturday.

Also: Kind of need to mention the reports of how "The Dark Web" of Far Right secret Internet servers are on fire with talk of civil war.

In short: Yeah, the pro-trump violence is ticking upward.

I almost saw this coming, barely a month ago. I wrote back then the reality we're in the early stages of a second civil war. I knew it was going to be something involving trump getting held to account for any number of his misdeeds surrounding the 2020 elections, the January 6th insurrection, or maybe even one of the big civil lawsuits like the one in New York (where trump had to testify in person and ended up pleading the Fifth Amendment over 440 times). Here's what I wrote:

You can feel it: We are one final step from the "Cannons Firing on Fort Sumter" point of no return. The battle lines are drawn over the January 6th Insurrection and the recent extremist Supreme Court rulings. All it's going to take is one more nudge from the goddamn wingnuts and we will be quoting Fred Thompson's "We will be lucky to live through it" line until the shooting stops, and either the United States remains intact but with the conservatives shattered for 100 years or with the nation broken under an authoritarian bootheel...

I'd bet good money - okay, 50 bucks, I'm a librarian I'm not rich - it's going to involve donald trump freaking out in some way, and most likely over criminal charges that would interfere with his plans to retake the White House in 2024. Thing is, there's a number of separate criminal charges he's still facing...

In that article, I gambled on the likely trigger being the Georgia grand jury investigation into trump's attempt to bully the state's Secretary of State - who oversaw the election results - into throwing the votes out for Biden and giving trump (falsely) the state's Electoral votes.

I honestly didn't even think about the simmering situation surrounding trump's failure to turn over Presidential Records until this February as the possible trigger. To be fair, the Justice Department had kept a tight lid on their investigations into - even in June when they pursued the remaining boxes of classified materials trump STILL hadn't turned over - the possibility trump violated the Presidential Records Act.

Who knew - other than the DOJ - that the case would also involve even more serious allegations of espionage?

As it stands, among all the other possible criminal matters trump is facing - in Georgia, in Arizona and Wisconsin involving "fake electors", with the January 6th investigations into various legal violations the House Committee has already uncovered - this one right here revolving around trump's illicit hoarding of national security/classified documents could well be the first big criminal charge trump will face between now and the end of the year.

And as I noted in my previous article, the minute trump gets charged with actual criminal felonies, his followers will erupt in violent madness. As Zach Beauchamp notes at Vox:

What we are seeing is shocking, but it’s part of an established pattern. Trump engages in some kind of egregious misbehavior, prompting official scrutiny and condemnation of his actions. He treats these actions as unjustified persecution, proof that the “deep state” is out to get him, a claim that the Republican Party and conservative press dutifully echo. His most radical supporters become even more radical, even contemplating violence.

None of these investigations is a witch hunt. In each case, there are serious reasons to believe that the president violated the law. If prosecutors chose not to even investigate Trump, that itself would be politically motivated — a tacit admission that if a political figure is popular enough, he is above the law.

But the result of prosecutors doing their job is predictable: Trump reacts by casting it as proof that he is under attack by nefarious forces...

The litany of grievances, the sense that Trump has been forever persecuted by the government, the unfounded implication that the FBI was “planting information” at his house — all of it screams victimization, that Trump is the target of a vast and shadowy conspiracy pulling the FBI’s strings.

The fact that a Truth Social user had just been radicalized by such talk — posting violent threats on the site before attempting an armed breach of an FBI building — isn’t deterring Trump at all. He is, as the political scientist Julia Azari puts it, a nationalist who has no concept of a nation; a narcissist who abuses the language of patriotism without any commitment to the underlying idea that he has some responsibility to preserve order and cohesion in the polity. In fact, he does the opposite — sowing division and stoking violent distrust if it helps him.

Perhaps Trump’s talk wouldn’t be so dangerous if the rest of the GOP would work to tamp it down. Yet it’s become excruciatingly clear in the wake of his emergence as the GOP’s standard-bearer that Republicans are not taking Trump’s transgressions and troubles as opportunities to dump him, but rather to dig in, right by his side, in similarly radical terms...

The Far Right cannot cut themselves off from trump because trump has given the Far Right everything they've ever wanted and still left them angry and violent for more.

If there's any good news, it's that the rabid trumpian fanbase won't attack the rest of America in large numbers. For all the millions of "true Americans" they think have their back, most Americans - even among the 74 million who voted for trump in 2020 - will not rise to violence when the call goes out. The simple fact is that a lot of them - even the ones yelling and screaming the most - have obligations in the real world that would not allow them to go off and live out the militant cosplay some of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers revel in. Most people are not that violent.

The bad news, obviously, is that in this day it doesn't take a lot of people to commit enough violence to cause grief. Even one gun nut with an AR-15 and MAGA outrage can ruin a small town's entire day.

Like it or not, we're facing dark days ahead. If the Justice Department pursues criminal charges on trump, it will escalate the current civil strife we're in to the next level of open warfare. If Justice is not pursued, all it will do is encourage trump to keep violating more laws, safe with the knowledge his mob rule overrides the rule of law.

Best to hold trump accountable. Let justice be done though the heavens fall. Best to face facts: trump is proving himself a clear and present danger to the safety of the United States itself, and the sooner he faces jail for his crimes the better it will be... in spite of the violence his followers will unleash on the rest of us.

Just be ready for when the day comes, America.

Florida Primary for 2022 Midterms, It's On

In some Florida counties they've already started early voting, but by today (Saturday August 13) they all should have the Early Voting setups for the party-level Primaries for this year's midterms.

SO GET THE VOTE OUT, DEMOCRATS AND LEFT-LEANING INDY VO... well, the thing about Florida is that the primaries tend to be closed to party-only, but there WILL BE items on the ballot - non-partisan races and local referenda - that Independent voters should cast ballots for as well.

You need to check your county's Elections website (check the state's elections directory here) and find out where the Early Voting polls are located. It helps to vote early to make sure you avoid the long lines that tend to form on August 23 for the Primary, and then November 8 for Election Day itself (for that, YOU NEED to be registered to vote by October 11 in Florida, so git 'er dun). 

Your county Supervisor should also provide Sample Ballots - search your Precinct info - so you can plan ahead (read up on the ballot issues and on the non-partisan candidates because they may actually be very partisan off-the-record).

They've crunched the timeline on Early Voting to where you get only a week to do it, otherwise plan ahead to stop at your local precinct to vote and get your choices known.

DO IT, FLORIDIANS. VOTE. These elections matter. Holding corrupt Republicans who haven't done a thing for our environment or our schools or our lives since the 1990s: That all matters. Ballot referendums regarding our schools and our health care and our rights: That all matters. Please get out the vote, and PLEASE for the LOVE OF GOD stop voting Republican.