March 30 2023: IT'S HAPPENING

Dammit! It had to happen while I was getting groceries on my way home!!!

To the AP NEWS (thanks to Michael R Sisak, Eric Tucker, Colleen Long, and Jennifer Peltz)!

A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first ever criminal case against a former U.S. president and a jolt to Trump’s bid to retake the White House in 2024.

The indictment, confirmed Thursday by Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for Trump, and other people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss sealed criminal charges, is an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. It is likely to galvanize critics who say Trump lied and cheated his way to the top and embolden supporters who feel the Republican is being unfairly targeted by a Democratic prosecutor...

The indictment(s) is/are sealed for now, meaning we don't know the specifics, but we should find out soon, probably when trump is required to appear in court.

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly attacked the investigation as politically motivated, was expected to surrender to authorities next week, though the details were still being worked out, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss a matter that remained under seal...

The fate of the hush-money investigation seemed uncertain until word got out in early March that Bragg had invited Trump to testify before a grand jury, a signal that prosecutors were close to bringing charges.

Trump’s attorneys declined the invitation, but a lawyer closely allied with the former president briefly testified in an effort to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her silent about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier after they met at a celebrity golf tournament.

Cohen was then reimbursed by Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, which also rewarded the lawyer with bonuses and extra payments logged internally as legal expenses. Over several months, Cohen said, the company paid him $420,000.

Earlier in 2016, Cohen had also arranged for the publisher of the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer to pay Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to squelch her story of a Trump affair in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

The payments to the women were intended to buy secrecy, but they backfired almost immediately as details of the arrangements leaked to the news media.

Federal prosecutors in New York ultimately charged Cohen in 2018 with violating federal campaign finance laws, arguing that the payments amounted to impermissible help to Trump’s presidential campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty to those charges and unrelated tax evasion counts and served time in federal prison.

Trump was implicated in court filings as having knowledge of the arrangements, but U.S. prosecutors at the time balked at bringing charges against him. The Justice Department has a longtime policy that it is likely unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president in federal court...

The state legal system doesn't have to abide by that DOJ policy, but the implications of a sitting President under those circumstances obviously delayed matters until trump was out of the White House.

But this has never even happened for former Presidents before. For all the potential criminal misdeeds that Presidents could commit before, during, and/or after office, none of them have reached this accountability moment before. Nixon almost did until Ford pardoned him. Bill Clinton could have faced indictment but he made a plea agreement to suspend his law license for five years and pay fines.

It's official: donald trump is indicted. He is facing at least one felony criminal charge.

To everyone who complained about DA Alvin Bragg dragging his heels, please apologize.

Let the celebrations - and the worries about wingnut violence - begin!

(starts playing the one dance song from his teen years that still gets his feet moving)

"And now on with the opera. Let joy be unconfined. Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons and necking in the parlor!" - Groucho Marx, A Night At the Opera

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update 3/31/23: Some additional notes to make:

The arraignment is officially set for Tuesday April 4 in the afternoon, so there's pretty much a whole weekend for the Far Right wingnuts to stoke themselves into enough of a frenzy to stage a riot in Manhattan before then. /sigh

A leaked report that has some veracity to it tells us trump is facing at least 30 separate counts, which is telling legal experts that Bragg's office uncovered a lot more serious stuff than just hush-money payouts to cover up trump's alleged affairs. One report suggests a number of counts on First Degree Falsifying Business Records, which is a Class E felony carrying a minimum of a year in jail each count.

Even with all this, those legal experts are also hinting that Bragg doesn't even have that strong a case. They're worried that juries tend to be lenient on matters where the defendant is covering up sexual affairs, that some of the witnesses against trump are tainted, and that Bragg waited too long to pursue this case risking trump's lawyers having a good chance to throw out part or all of the charges due to statutory limits. Those experts may not understand that 1) unlike previous adulterers who turn regretful on the stand, trump remains arrogant and defensive, and 2) Bragg and his team apparently uncovered a lot of financial corruption during their previous trial against trump's corporation to where a jury could convict on that instead of the affairs. 

trump is still facing a serious criminal matter in Manhattan: That the experts believe this is the weakest case should tell everybody how fcked trump is going to be when the Fulton County GA indictments into election fraud (which has the slam-dunk evidence of trump himself on audio) - as well as the federal Special Counsel indictments into BOTH trump's theft of classified docs AND his involvement in the January 6th Insurrection - drop on him.

And for all the storm and fury trump is unleashing over these indictments, it may not even be the worst of it. trump's never faced a criminal court case (only civil cases), and trump's not prepared to deal with the likelihood the judge is going to set harsh restrictions on himself to keep him from raging against all this in public. Given the obvious attention this trial faces - this is international news, a former President facing historic justice - the judge could well insist on gag orders to prevent any pre-trial conflicts and risks to the defendant's (trump) right to a fair trial. Even to where the judge could put that gag order on the defendant himself, whose social media rants could well enflame people interfering with his own right to an honest jury of his peers.

trump's already issued threats to the DA's office and to Bragg directly, and Bragg is already receiving death threats by the boxload. Given this, the judge setting bail could arguably detain trump to stop or reduce trump's danger to the prosecution (and any jury being formed): If not in prison without bail, at least home arrest to where trump can't leave the city without permission from the courts. THAT would unleash a political firestorm our nation's never seen before. The odds of trump refusing to abide by any bail agreement are pretty fucking high.

Everything's not going to calm down. This weekend will be just another escalation of the wingnut madness we've been suffering since 2015, and next Tuesday is going to escalate even more. Gods help us.

Still, get the popcorn and the body armor ready.

The Mouse Knows How to Play (w/ Updates)

Well, there's actually been a lot going on in the war between Bully DeSantis and The House of Mouse (aka Disney Orlando) since last I wrote about DeSantis going after Disney for their pro-gay stances. 

After DeSantis' November re-election - and the establishment of super-majorities in both houses of the state legislature - DeSantis carved out a more humiliating law that took complete power of the Reedy Creek Improvement District away from Disney's corporate kingdom, and planned to stack the incoming board with lackeys and anti-gay wingnuts that would look for any excuse to dump their Culture War bullshit on everything Disney runs (even dictate company policy - straight-up censorship - outside of Florida!).

Part of me remained a little shocked by what DeSantis was attempting. I've grown up - my life since my family moved to Florida in 1977 - with the belief that you do not fuck with Disney. They go after day care centers, for God's sake. And yet it seemed to me that Disney - this massive, multi-billion dollar entertainment entity, this behemoth that has enough money it can buy nations if it had to - was rolling over and playing dead to let this godless tiny bully have his way with them. I was wondering when the fabled army of Mickey Mouse lawyers would show up to sue DeSantis and the Florida GOP back to the stone age.

Well, it turns out that army of lawyers already scorched the Earth before DeSantis' lackeys could grab the keys to the Magic Kingdom. Skyler Swisher at the Orlando Sentinel has more:

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked board overseeing Disney World’s government services is gearing up for a potential legal battle over a 30-year development agreement they say effectively renders them powerless to manage the entertainment giant’s future growth in Central Florida.

Ahead of an expected state takeover, the Walt Disney Co. quietly pushed through the pact and restrictive covenants that would tie the hands of future board members for decades, according to a legal presentation by the district’s lawyers on Wednesday...

I was hoping more along the lines of giant dragons melting everything DeSantis owned into a scrap of metal, but this might work.

The previous board, which was known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District and controlled by Disney, approved the agreement on Feb. 8, the day before the Florida House voted to put the governor in charge.

Board members held a public meeting that day but spent little time discussing the document before unanimously approving it in a brief meeting.

DeSantis replaced those Disney-allied board members with five Republicans on Feb. 27, who discovered the binding agreement the previous board approved.

DeSantis and Disney clashed over the corporation’s opposition to what critics call the “don’t say gay” law, which limits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools...

Among other things, a “declaration of restrictive covenants” spells out that the district is barred from using the Disney name without the corporation’s approval or “fanciful characters such as Mickey Mouse.”

That declaration is valid until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England,” according to the document.

A development agreement allows Disney to build projects at the highest density and the right to sell or assign those development rights to other district landowners without the board having any say, according to the presentation by the district’s new special legal counsel...

So what happens here is that DeSantis and his cronies can't interfere with Corporate Disney's power to sell and develop the land in the special district and... and... wait a minute. Back up to that earlier bit.

Valid until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England”???

It's a Rule Against Perpetuities, an ancient English Common Law practice that applies to modern law - even in the United States - in obscure but powerful ways. Not all states observe it... but Florida DOES.

Did Disney just tie their Magical Kingdom to the fates of the British Royals of the United Kingdom?!

(Taps one of Charles' son on the shoulder) "Yer a Disney Prince, Harry!" (yes, Disney is stealing this from a Warner Bros. franchise... which has a theme park at Universal just up I-4.)

This is where it gets tricky. Are the rules only counting the current descendants of Charlie, which would mean the grandkids under William and Harry both? Or does this extend to future generations, which technically implies the rules are upheld until the Windsor bloodline is officially done (which could take centuries)? (Update: see below)

Either way, the Disney lawyers have set up a situation where DeSantis can't demean or devalue or bully or break the House of Mouse in any way. Even the legal battles over this arrangement could take years to resolve - the delaying tactics alone could take five to ten years to hurdle past - and those are years DeSantis can't afford to slip away.

DeSantis is campaigning now - technically off-the-radar, because Florida laws require him to resign from his current office if he's running for another - for the Presidency, and he's doing it by pandering to the worst parts of Culture War hysteria the Far Right enjoys. Hammering at an "evil pro-gay company" like Disney would have been cheap easy points to score. But if he can't impose his will on Disney's corporate policies - if he and his lackeys can't make Disney change their tune about gay rights, if they can't force Disney to dispose of gay/trans characters on their cartoon shows and streaming service, if they can't compel Disney to shill Christianist bullshit as they hoped to - then he's got nothing to offer the GOP voting base this 2024.

This may not stop DeSantis and his allies in Tallahassee. They can arguably come up with more laws to hammer at Disney's corporate rights in order to humiliate them further. But all that does is expose the hypocrisy of the modern Republican ideology. You'd think a pro-business political party wouldn't do this, but the GOP is no longer pro-business. They're an authoritarian religious cult, obsessing over absolute loyalty to their dogma and themselves, and they will undercut businesses - even ones as profitable and powerful as Disney - as well as people to get their way.

I do hope the Disney lawyers unleash that broom army to drown DeSantis' team of lawyers. Wash 'em all away, Mickey.

Quick update: If the deal holds, if Disney is able to stave off DeSantis' upcoming legal fight, the youngest "current living descendant" of King Charles III is Princess Lilibet of Sussex, Harry and Meghan's daughter born 2021. 

Current British life expectancy is 80 years. Given she will have access to the best doctors and care, we could expect Lilibet to live at least 85 years, after which those 21 extra years added on would mean 106 years before DeSantis' hand-picked board of Culture War meddlers can even order office supplies on the Reedy Creek dime. And by then, the 2024 primaries will be LONG over.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Plus, the Magic Kingdom FINALLY has a REAL Disney princess to celebrate. It's all yours, Lilibeth Diana of House Windsor. Start working on your singing skills for the inevitable three-musical-picture deal with the studio.

Update 3/30/23: There's a detailed report with the Disney Tourist Blog that keeps up with the parks. Even the blogger Tom Bricker was caught off-guard by the company's sleight-of-hand here:

In terms of commentary, I don’t really know what to say. Throughout the Reedy Creek battle, every effort to predict specific outcomes based on legal analysis has proven futile. In our most recent article that touched upon the RCID takeover, I conceded that this was not how I expected the saga to play out.

With that said, there’s one way I’ve been right on the money all along: that this is not about the law, passing meaningful legislation, or the tough and thankless work of local governance. It’s about political theater; scoring a “win” in today’s era of ‘politics as team sports’ and the ongoing culture wars. The goal isn’t to govern; it’s to grab headlines and dominate the news cycle.

Serious analysis isn’t appropriate here because these aren’t serious people with sincere motivations. That’s likely why Disney opted against fighting this previously and instead put out deferential and conciliatory statements. The company’s calculus was that it’s not as easy to “fight” a one-sided culture war. The satisfaction (my note: for DeSantis and his Culture Warriors) was in the struggle...

This was never about reform. This was about control. And Disney is doing everything they can to deny DeSantis any control.

The Wrong Mentor to the Worst Person

"Where's my Roy Cohn?"
-- allegedly spoken by donald trump, desperately looking for a mob lawyer to save his ass while in the White House.

trump's prediction that the New York District Attorney would indict him Tuesday didn't pan out - extra witness testimony is delaying the matter - but that doesn't mean trump is off of the hot seat this week.

The Special Counsel investigation into trump's mishandling of classified documents sped up this week as the court overseeing the matter issued rulings that overturned the attorney-client privileges between donald trump and Evan Corcoran.

Chief Judge “Howell found that prosecutors showed ‘sufficient’ evidence that Trump ‘intentionally concealed’ the existence of additional classified documents from Corcoran, sources said, putting Corcoran in an unwitting position to deceive the government.”https://t.co/AG01TYhVwK

— Pete Strzok (@petestrzok) March 21, 2023

For a judge to exempt any attorney-client privilege, they have to be convinced that the client and attorney were committing crimes - in Corcoran's situation, because trump lied to him - in an attempt to hide the illegality of their acts. This is a big fucking deal, because Judge Howell is pretty much establishing what trump did with classified documents at Mar-A-Lago - stashing them, keeping them away from the government agencies they should have gone to, and possibly copying/scanning those documents for sharing - were straight-up crimes.

This isn't the first time trump's been caught employing his lawyers - hi again, Michael Cohen! - to commit crimes for him, willingly or otherwise. It begs the question "hey lawyers, why are you working for an asshole who's gonna get you disbarred for doing his dirty work for him?"

I digress.

The reason I opened this article quoting trump's desire for a Roy Cohn figure to return to his life is to point out the destruction that Cohn himself left behind in his wake. A brief description of Cohn's own political and legal career foreshadows the gaslighting, bullying, grandstanding nature of trump's own disastrous train wreck of a Presidency. 

It's not hard to imagine how Cohn taught trump the tricks of the legal system - to where trump laughed at civil lawsuits and bankruptcy rulings - and created a monster to inherit Cohn's own dark desires for respect and power.

The problem is trump never paid attention to how Roy Cohn fell from grace: Cohn getting disbarred for attempting to lie his way into a dying man's will; Cohn's reputation shattered as the secrets of the McCarthy Era came out, exposing his own hypocrisies and lies; Cohn refusing to face the reality of his AIDS infection and inglorious death.

Cohn just refused to accept reality. He wanted to pummel it - and everyone in his way - into submission by his will alone, facts be damned. Even when it means lying to himself about what was happening.

It's a lesson Cohn taught trump all too well. It's a problem for the rest of us that trump doesn't accept how Cohn's lessons were wrong, that they all led to self-destruction.

Problem is, trump is willing to charge into that self-destruction convinced he and he alone can win, all the while dragging the rest of us down into the firepits with him.

Roy Cohn. The wrong American serving as mentor to the worst American. Gods help us.

Paul Harvey parody: ...and that little boy who nobody liked grew up to be... Roy Cohn!
Abe Simpson: WOW!
Harvey parody: And now you know the rest of the story!

-- "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," The Simpsons

I Am Busy At The Moment, Did They Indict trump's Ass Yet

(keeps checking the Twitter feed every 30 minutes)

Dammit. It's gonna happen tomorrow during my Library Day efforts for FLA in Tallahassee, isn't it.

 

All That Rage: America's Failures With Iraq

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the official U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, launched in March 2003 as part of George W. Bush's attempt to avenge America after September 11... and personal revenge against Saddam Hussein's attempts to assassinate George's father.

There's a useful timeline with AP News for a refresher, in case you've already forgotten the rage and tears of those years.

There were a lot of failures: 

Failure by our intelligence community to drown out the noise of Neoconservatives eager for war and nation-building they were ill-suited to undertake; 

Failure by Bush the Lesser to contain his personal vendetta; 

Failure by a Congress too cowed by the passions of 9/11 to deny the fantasies of the Neocons and the Bush admin who believed they had an easy war to win; 

Failure by our national media outlets both print and televised who ignored the millions of Americans who protested an uncalled-for attack on a nation that had NOTHING TO DO with Bin Laden's attacks; 

Even further failures by our government to prevent the torture regimes that rose up in the shadows, committing untold war crimes that stained our nation's international prestige.

The start of the Second Persian Gulf War - do people really remember the first one in 1991? - all came about because there were factions in the Republican foreign policy ranks who really wanted to "democratize" the Middle East, but we couldn't do with our allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt because it would disrupt their totalitarian regimes, and we couldn't do with our enemies like Iran or Iraq unless we were directly provoked. But hey, somewhere had to pop up to build that Utopia, right?

Bush and his administration - especially his Veep Dick Cheney, who had profits in mind for his corporation and his business buddies - used the excuse of the 9/11 attacks to paint Iraq and Iran as part of an "Axis Of Evil" to justify going after them, and then used Saddam's quest for Weapons of Mass Destruction - with unproven allegations of Saddam getting materials to build nukes - to justify invasion.

We had a plan to invade, and we rolled it out to the dismay of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died in the "shock and awe" bombings and later on in the occupation.

Bush and Cheney kept justifying this all as "humanitarian" as though war ever was humane. Cheney himself claimed "We will be greeted as liberators."

These were all lies.

A lot of Americans still bought those lies, as we were still barely years away from the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. The pain and the rage were still raw and tangible.

We had a plan to invade, and also a plan to occupy and get out. Except the occupation was a disaster.

The search for Saddam's WMDs turned into a joke: Everything found were either rusted out, broken, or non-existent. Any evidence we had were either exaggerated out of proportion, or based on Saddam's own people lying about WMDs as a bluff (which didn't work). The justification for occupation faded away. Desperate to prove themselves true, our leaders signed off on extensive "enhanced interrogation techniques" better known as TORTURE to force people to confess where the (fake) WMDs went to. Our sins kept getting worse.

Anyone who criticized the WMD excuses were exposed and humiliated, which led to political and criminal scandals when Cheney's self-appointed intel office revealed an active non-official cover agent (Valerie Plame) and broke CIA protocols. The way Cheney and his people abused their access to big-press journalists also exposed how our national media outlets failed their ethical standards and the nation's trust.

The Bush Plan A for ending the war revolved around propping up an Iraqi ally puppet Ahmed Chalabi as Saddam's replacement, hold elections with a pro-American government, announce victory and get out. But the nation-building plans proved more complex, and Chalabi turned out to be an unreliable ally that neither the Iraqis nor Americans could trust in power. When Paul Bremer issued a controversial order to disband the still-needed Iraqi army and Ba'ath Party, it sparked an uprising that turned the occupation into an almost decade-long quagmire. Bremer's action, and the failure by the Bush administration to control such miscues, pointed out clearly that there was no Plan B dealing with Iraq.

And the poor citizenry of Iraq paid the price for it. They're paying it still, as the chaos of those years allowed sectional factions like ISIL to rise up and spill more blood well into the 2010s.

So here we are, 20 years later. Have we - the United States - learned from our failures?

Arguably No. 

We still have Far Right elements of our government still eager to start opportunistic invasions and occupations wherever they want (except for helping out Ukraine, because they don't want us facing off against Putin). 

We never held any of the architects of that godless torture regime - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld (RIP), John Yoo, Jay Bybee, several others - accountable for their human rights and Habeus violations. There are nations - not just Iraq but also our NATO and regional allies - still calling on us to do so.

We never fully repaid Iraq for the damages we inflicted, an insane amount of money meant for that nation's rebuilding efforts that literally disappeared into rich people's vaults.

Shocking for us at home has been the mistreatment and neglect given to our military veterans who served in Iraq (and Afghanistan) who have not received proper psychological, physical, and economic support from our VA and other federal agencies. Where are the funds to provide housing, medical care, educational opportunities? An entire generation that had been sent off to a decade-long war still ignored, still struggling to rebuild their own lives while Iraq rebuilds their own.

Our (mostly Republican, but even Democratic leaders from that period share the blame) political leadership failed us repeatedly, driven by blind rage and mindless ideological fantasy. Those failures keep happening, as the lack of accountability by all of them - Presidents and Congresscritters, Generals and Analysts, Media Elites and Corporate Criminals, all of them honorable bastards - haunt us to this day.

Will There Be Violence?

As I was writing yesterday about the expectations of when donald trump would get indicted in New York City (at least, for all we know the Fulton County DA's office may jump in first) some time next week, trump himself hopped onto social media screaming (CAPS LOCK is his friend!) how it was going to happen on Tuesday and that his followers needed to "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!"

(You might also notice trump's media rant name-drops George Soros which is dog-whistle for anti-Semitism. trump is clearly signaling the haters of his MAGA base.)

You might wonder how trump could be so specific about the day the grand jury indictments will drop, but apparently the prosecutors give defense lawyers a heads-up when to have their clients ready to turn themselves in for custody and arraignment. Still, even the reality that it's going to happen has gotten trump to the point of open panic.

trump's call for protests echoes the same calls he made after the 2020 election results went against him, and he summoned up a protest rally that turned into an insurrection meant to disrupt the Electoral Count in Congress. Now, he's calling for protests to start riots in the streets of Manhattan to bully the legal system into submission.

Tom Nichols at the Atlantic can see trump's agitation for what it is: 

Let us begin with the obvious thing that just happened: This morning, Donald Trump threatened to summon a mob—for the second time in two years—to his defense. The former president of the United States and a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the White House in 2024, facing a possible indictment in New York, claimed to know the exact day on which he would be arrested and then called on his supporters to “protest.” Trump and his cult know what a call for “protest” means: The last time he rallied his faithful supporters this way, they stormed the U.S. Capitol, which resulted in death and destruction and many, many prison sentences.

Spokespeople from the former president’s office have already walked back Trump’s statement, noting that they have not been told of any specific date for an indictment or an arrest. Indeed, any attempt to book Trump is unlikely to happen as soon as Tuesday, for many reasons. But that’s not the point. Trump’s message today to the American people has already come through loud and clear: I am too dangerous to arrest.

There's debate out there whether these indictments are actually good for trump. It's been done: trump uses the attacks on him to market himself to his followers as both Martyr and Hero. Getting charged for crimes trump can claim as "Witch Hunts" will inspire his base - already believing all the other lies he's sold them - to support him even more. There's an argument that trump's rage-tweets are merely more marketing efforts to boost his viability (to trump, even bad press is good for him).

But trump's panic should be considered real, and dangerous.

Nearly all of trump's previous clashes with the legal system have been Civil cases: lawsuits by defrauded victims, appearances in bankruptcy courts to avoid creditors, sexual harassment claims, and fights over business deals trump broke time and again. 

This time, trump is facing Criminal indictment, likely on various charges just in the Manhattan district case alone. Criminal cases are vastly different from Civil ones, and the punishments if found Guilty in criminal cases more harsh than being found Liable in civil cases. 

In a criminal matter, trump is not going up against a small business owner or a disgruntled victim, ones he can bully and harass into settlements where trump can avoid admission of liability: He's going up against a government aka The State (technically a City level in this matter) with more resources and less patience for delay tactics that trump's lawyers could play in civil matters. trump can't make any settlement in a criminal matter: the State is going to want at least minimum jail time on at least one charge, and a public confession in open court (something that trump as a narcissist can never admit) to the things trump would have to plead guilty to make the deal stick.

trump may enjoy the benefits of campaigning to his MAGA base as a Martyr to a Librul Legal System. But campaigning at worst as a convicted felon, at best as a confessed criminal on even a misdemeanor plea deal will likely scare away the Independent voters both he and the Republicans dare not lose in 2024, and could even dissuade the non-MAGA Republican voters from voting at all. The other side of that situation is increased voter turnout by Democrats unwilling to let a confessed or convicted criminal like trump anywhere near the White House again.

trump does have an advantage in criminal matters in that the burden of proof for the State is stricter than civil matters. However, trump is facing the reality that the grand jury's review of the evidence suggests more than enough proof existed for the DA to proceed. It'll all come down to trial jury by "peers" that trump can't officially bully or tamper with. trump - or at least his lawyers - can't run the risk of testifying on the stand, even though trump likely believes he can charm anybody and gaslight his way out of trouble (in reality trump's bragging arrogance on the stand is a huge turn-off to juries). In a case like this, trump's lawyers could fight the allegations without trump's testimony, but without it they run the risk of the jury agreeing with the DA's versions of events (and believing witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and several others regarding trump's culpability). 

In short: trump can't handle the high risks of facing a criminal court indictment.

Threatening the DA's office, threatening violent protests like January 6th only this time in the streets of New York City, is the best option trump has to avoid the risk altogether. Like the Sicilian mob bosses who order hits on Italian judges, trump wants to spill enough blood to convince the legal system to not even think about going after him.

But trump never really thinks all of this through. The early reports are that the NYPD and FBI and other agencies are already planning for trump's rioters to show up. They've seen this movie. Unlike January 6th, trump and his handlers can't sabotage the security efforts, meaning the police and other law enforcement won't be undermanned and vulnerable to attacks.

Despite the conservative nature of a lot of police officers and federal agents - a number of them MAGA at heart - most of them will show up to do their jobs if ordered towards "keeping the peace" and preventing any violence from escalating.

And despite what trump believes about his followers - and yes, he has millions of Americans awaiting every command he issues - they're not going to show up in numbers this time to overwhelm anything. Don't forget even for his "big rally" to spark the January 6th riots, he only had roughly 2,000 people show up for him actually raid the Capitol. Hundreds of them have already been convicted or plead out, most of them in jail right now and unable to rally to trump's aid.

There may be 74 million Americans willing to vote for trump, but there's nowhere near that number willing to fight (or die) for trump and the racist sexist ideology he represents. A lot of trump supporters still have to think about their personal obligations - family, children, work, their own health, their own income - and can't show up as trump expects.

There may be violence in the streets of New York City this coming week, but it won't be all-out war. Most Americans are going to stay home and keep themselves as safe as possible. All we can hope for is that the bloodshed be kept at a minimum.

Gods help us, in a nation threatened by open-carry laws and easy access to assault rifles, minimum bloodshed is the best we can ever pray for... 

History In This Moment Where A Con Man Finally Faces Justice

Headline at NBC News (via Jonathan Dienst):

Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week

Multiple agencies are discussing potential security plans for in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court in case Trump is charged in connection with an alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Local, state and federal law enforcement and security agencies are preparing for the possibility that former President Donald Trump will be indicted as early as next week, according to five senior officials familiar with the preparations.

An honest word to describe all this is "Historic."

It was historic back in 2016 when the United States elected - through a broken Electoral process where he lost the Popular vote but won enough states - a person in donald trump who had never before held elected or nominated office.

It was historic that our nation invited into the White House a corrupt con man with a history of civil court cases, criminal allegations, and other misdeeds to where it can honestly be said trump was the most corrupt person to enter the Presidency.

Yell and scream all you want about the other Presidents of our times, but how many of them were honest-to-God as crooked as trump? trump was going into the White House after 2016 with serious allegations of money laundering from the 1980s and onwards, a series of failed bankruptcies that should have exiled him from the business community (or at least should have convinced banks to stop lending him money), and was even embroiled in a civil suit regarding fraud with his failed "Trump University" by the time he put his hand on a Bible to swear an Oath of Office he never took serious.

Remember all the trump rally chants in 2016 screaming "Lock Her Up" about the allegedly corrupt Hillary Clinton? All those investigations into her and not trump (not until it was too late)? Turns out Hillary never crossed the lines, never broke the law as her critics and haters accused. Even her Clinton Foundation that was attacked as a "fake" non-profit? It's still running, while trump's clearly fake non-profit was shut down for trump's abuse of non-profit regulations.

Remember all the Far Right demagogues convinced that Obama was crooked? Not just his "illegal" status arguing over his Hawaiian birth certificate, but attacking him on any other allegations of fraud and misconduct. Remember Solyndra? Investigations found it was the company that was corrupt, not Obama. And yet, the Tea Party (proto-MAGA) mobs howled for Obama to face their "justice".

There were - still are - a lot of angry Liberal Democrats railing against George W. Bush, especially as the War of Terror shifted from avenging 9/11 towards an uncalled and costly invasion/occupation of Iraq. When Putin just got tagged by the international courts for War Crimes against Ukraine, a lot of social media replies fell along the lines of "Now do Bush." But it should be noted that the Democrat who followed Dubya into the White House - Obama - did not pursue war crimes (or any other allegations of corruption) as a legal matter, not even pursuing it as a partisan method of punishing the Neocon pro-war Republicans. For all the evidence of human torture and battlefield atrocities happening under Bush the Lesser's watch, there did not seem to be enough for a sustainable indictment (or at least not enough to prevent the collapse of half our military and intel agencies if we did pursue it).

There were a lot of angry Liberals when Bush the Elder pardoned every major figure involved in Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, closing the lid on that particular criminal matter, but even then the criminal allegations barely reached either Reagan or Bush, and calls for their arrests stayed on the fringes.

If you're buying into donald trump's claims that every criminal investigation is a WITCH HUNT and every prosecutor is doing so for partisan (and racist) political points, you'll have to explain why these sort of things never happened to every other former President in modern times. The closest we've ever gotten to any President under criminal investigation was Richard Nixon, facing tax evasion, obstruction, and other criminal charges in the wake of his resignation after Watergate. It took Gerald Ford's pardon - in Ford's earnest attempt to end the "long national nightmare" of scandal - to avoid that particular mess, and even then there was enough evidence for a case and a lot of Americans who preferred Nixon face his sins in a courtroom.

Look at trump's efforts to apply that belief - that partisan politics motivate criminal charges towards our political figures - to his political enemies Obama and Hillary. trump pushed for investigations into his claims he was unfairly persecuted by Obama's Justice Department, and that Hillary was corruptly dealing with others to steal the 2016 elections from trump. All of that wrapped into John Durham's special counsel investigations... that proved none of trump's claims and exposed Durham as a fool (or worse).

If you're buying into the most honest, simplest explanation into why trump is facing criminal (and civil) charges on a scale before never placed upon a political figure in American politics, it's because America never before had a con artist crook like trump operating on such a criminal scale before reach our highest political office.

All of these grand jury investigations - not just in New York involving his corrupt business practices, but also Georgia involving trump's attempt to influence the vote count in 2020, and in DC involving his call to insurrection and riot on January 6th - can't be happening without honest-to-God evidence, witnesses to his (and others) involvement, proof that something criminal took place. Durham had no evidence except for trump's gaslighting, and look where that got him. NYC prosecutors have evidence that trump paid off people to cover up his acts of adultery leading into 2016, and they've got to a grand jury to deliberate.

This is all historic because we've never had a corrupt con artist reach this high before.

This will all be historic when the indictments finally come down, because trump's panicked reactions to every criminal charge will trigger both celebration and riot.

Gods help us. The week of March 20-25 will be one of the most chaotic in our nation's history. As unsettling as September 11th and about as farcical as the Lorena Bobbitt trial.

The cops may try to get ready for it but I doubt the rest of us can.

Update: Infidel753 has a few thoughts, mostly concerns about how this will either inspire trump's supporters to vote for him in 2024, or leave the Republican primary race in the hands of DeSantis, who threatens to be worse and could win because the media are ignoring the warning signs about DeSantis' assaults on free speech.

Where Are The Ukrainian Children, Putin?

I was kind of waiting for arrest warrants to go out for the other guy today, but getting this announcement of arrest warrants for trump's evil puppetmaster Putin will do nicely (via Mike Corder and Raf Casert at AP News):

The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.

The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations.

The court’s president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC’s judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants...

There is of course no way that the Russian government will honor the Hague's warrants, I don't believe they are even signed onto the treaties that created this court.

But this puts the whole world on notice. In the eyes of the international communities, of their legal systems, and in the name of justice, it is a matter of public record that Putin is the war criminal here in his uncalled and unjust invasion of Ukraine since 2022 (arguably well back into 2014 when Russia seized Crimea and the Donbas region).

The ICC said that its pre-trial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”

The court statement said that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (and) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts...”

Anybody trying to defend Putin's actions from here on will have to justify Putin and Russia's illegal kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children, which they can't. Everything else Putin is doing that's illegal - such as the bombing of civilian areas and the killing of innocents - becomes harder for his apologists to excuse away as well.

The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a “filtration” system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.

But on Friday, the ICC put the face of Putin on the child abduction allegations.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN YOU STOLE, PUTIN?

It's the Ides of March. Do YOU Know Where Your Astrologer Is?

It's Stabby Time!

Caesar (to the Soothsayer): The Ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.
-- Julius Caesar Act III, some bloke goes by Willie Shakespeare

So what exactly IS an "Ides" on the calendar, anyway? 

Well, back in the ancient days while the Romans worked on getting us the roads, aqueducts, wine, maritime laws, and vomitoriums (it's NOT a place to upchuck, but their word describing the exit ramps from their sports stadiums), they did it all working with a calendar that followed the lunar cycle. That is, the fullness of the moon in a 28-day cycle of a dark face, a half-full, full, and waning to dark again.

The new moon (or dark) signaled the Calends (or Kalends) of the month (hence the name calendar for our monthly schedules). The Calends were when people paid off their debts, similar to today when people pay off mortgages, utilities, cable, that blackmailer who's got all the juicy video on you, etc. The Nones were at the seventh day where the moon would be half-full, and then the Ides were the full moon (total brightness) which would be on the 15th day, before everything waning back down to the next Calends.

Knowing these days helped the Romans keep up with their religious holidays, on which days to appease certain gods/goddesses, and keep track of their agrarian schedules (farming back then meant food and prosperity).

There was, however, a slight problem.

While the moon is an easy method of keeping to a strict schedule - where the lunar cycle is roughly 29 days, to where a flexible 28 days with an occasional leap day added could work - it didn't reflect the seasonal patterns of where the Earth is cycling around the Sun. Working on a farm requires knowing the best times to plant your seeds, fertilize the ground, grow the things that grow best in cold climes and then grow things best in warmer climes. Because the cold months and warm months depended more on where the Earth was in relation to the Sun, the Romans quickly kept losing track of when the winter months were and when to start growing things in springtime.

Various attempts at reforms took place during the days of the Roman Republic, but it wasn't until Julius Caesar showed up, becoming the High Priest of Rome (the Pontifex Maximus) as well as military dictator winning the civil wars against Pompey and other Senate rivals. He had the astrologers and scientists map out an unbalanced but longer calendar year more aligned to the solar (or tropical) patterns, and added three emergency months in 46 BCE to get things aligned in time for 45 BCE.

And what was the thanks he got?!?!

Bloody Optimates.

The Far Right War Against the Rule of Law Reaches Israel

I've only recently noticed in the past month that Bibi "Bribe Guy" Netanyahu had returned to political power as Prime Minister of Israel, during the end of 2022 when I was distracted by the holidays.

And my first thought finding out he was back was "What the hell? I thought they kicked you out of the damn house!" 

My second thought was "What the hell? Isn't he STILL on trial over bribery charges???"

Anyway, the reason why I even noticed Netanyahu was back in power was because Israel is currently racked by massive protests over Netanyahu's plans to gut Israel's legal system to ensure his authoritarian rule never ends. Via Jonathan Guyer at Vox:

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli protesters have been demonstrating against the extreme-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since January. The protests have become some of the biggest in Israeli history and are drawing out the country’s most famous faces.

On Thursday, protesters plan to disrupt Netanyahu’s travel to Rome in a sign of defiance of his ultranationalist, illiberal government. They’re calling it a “day of resistance to the dictatorship.” This builds on two months of mass mobilization across Israel that have been squarely focused on the Netanyahu government’s set of judiciary overhauls, which would weaken the independence of the country’s high court and create the conditions for unchecked majoritarian rule.

The backlash to these proposals has reached even staunchly establishment groups in Israel: A group of fighter pilots are on strike, tech workers staged a work stoppage, and former prime ministers have joined the protests...

Netanyahu was elected to a sixth premiership this November, but this time with the most extreme, nationalistic, and exclusionary government in Israeli history.

From the get-go, the Israeli government has sought to make significant changes to the high court that would hollow out its independence and its power to serve as a check on the Israeli parliament, or the Knesset. The several bills put forward would restrict the court’s ability to overturn laws it sees as unconstitutional and allow a simple majority in the Knesset to reject its decisions. It would also give government lawmakers and appointees effective power over the committee of nine individuals that appoints judges, and rescind key authorities from the attorney general. These and other changes would weaken the independent judiciary’s power in a parliamentary system that otherwise lacks checks.

This is all complicated by the fact that Israel doesn’t have a constitution, but a set of regulations passed as the Basic Law. The proposal’s backers, like a group of Israeli academics who recently published an open letter in support, say the court has grown too powerful. But, according to a recent survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, “66 percent of Israelis think the Supreme Court should have the power to strike down a law if it is incompatible with the Basic Laws...”

I'd also question Netanyahu's motivations for backing these efforts against a legal system that's poised to hit him with felony convictions that could dash his efforts to stay in power for life. But then, this is what dictators do: Break the Law so that the Law only benefits themselves.

This is all part of a disturbing trend the past 10-20 years where even the most stable and respectable democratic nations - some of them having gone through decades of Cold War tensions to establish genuine rule of law - suffering the indignity of organized, deep-funded Far Right conservative movements taking control of their governments - through legal elections no less - and then for their own benefit gutting the legal systems they abused to gain power in the first place.

It's only when these Far Right politicians take a sledgehammer to the courts - where every nation's system of justice plays out - do the voters realize they've given power to dangerous demagogues. The protests will be massive, the majority of the citizens will be outraged... but the bastards now in power will hear none of it and happily wreck their nation's foundations all so they can hold onto that power a little while longer (before their own corruption collapses on them like a ruined house).

We're suffering it here in the United States as well, where extreme gerrymandering and a power structure that skews towards small-populated states has us in the grip of a Minority Party (hint: Republican) rule, even with Democrats (currently) in control of the Presidency and half of Congress. Israel may lean Conservative/Right in terms of politics, but even they have extremist factions - all of them now in power as Netanyahu can't form coalitions with anyone else - that do not honestly speak for the interests of the Israeli people.

The effects of the Far Right Israeli efforts to weaken their legal system is coming with a wave of violence and disenfranchisement of the Palestinian population that makes up a significant portion of Israel's voting base, and yet are getting driven out of their communities in Gaza and the West Bank with annexation efforts that threaten global efforts to resolve centuries of Jewish/Palestinian conflicts over the land they both claim as home. We're looking at the reality that yet other uprising by disenfranchised Palestinians re-sparking the horrors of Middle East violence will flow across the entire region and drag the United States (and other allies) into that mess all over again.

All because a goddamned crook kept getting elected back into the Prime Minister's office.

What the hell, Israeli voters. You let Bibi back into that house. What the actual hell.

DeSantis Can't Read the Snowflakes

Posted on social media over the weekend, we have proof that Republicans are idiots and that Ron DeSantis is a moron (via Ellen E Clarke at Tampa Bay Times (paywalled)):

In Iowa on Friday to promote his new book, Gov. Ron DeSantis posed with a gift from a supposed supporter.

The gift, a framed cutout of an intricate snowflake, features the word “fascist.” Steven Goffman, whose profile says that he works for the Washington Post, tweeted that Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, also a Republican, posed with a copy of the gift, too.

DeSantis was visiting Iowa, introducing himself to expectant audiences of Republicans ahead of a likely 2024 presidential bid...

Lemme get a copy of the photo:

 

pulled from Twitter

The second I saw the photo of the snowflake, I spotted the "asci" part of the word immediately. It quickly became a puzzle-solving matter of figuring out the rest of the word (The "F" is done with a cursive flourish in order to tie the mirror shape of the snowflake together). Considering DeSantis' public behavior - of bullying and censoring his critics, his hostile takeover of Florida politics, and eager willingness to use these methods to move upward in politics to the Presidency - the only word it could have been is "Fascist".

The symbolism of the snowflake - as a political insult - can't be overlooked.

That Ron DeSantis - he with the Ivy League education going to both Harvard and Yale - failed to notice the hidden word in the snowflake, and that he failed to recognize the deliberate insult given to him, tells me that DeSantis is unaware, that he's unthinking, that he can't perceive words or symbolic images that any intelligent person can. In short, he can't read.

I went to both Universities of Florida (which was a top-flight institution until DeSantis showed up to ruin the state's higher education) and South Florida (commuter college, but not shabby), but I could see it where he couldn't.

This makes some sense for all of DeSantis' recent attempts to raze Florida's public university system to turn them into broken-down partisan cesspools. For all the prestige he got from attending the top universities in the nation, DeSantis does not respect education at all because he personally remains uneducated and ignorant. And he desires to drag the rest of our state - our children and future generations - down into the cesspool with him and his fellow wingnut hacks. 

I seriously call on Yale and Harvard to rescind his college degrees and release his transcripts for public transparency. DeSantis' current disdain for higher education - and his clear lack of comprehension skills - proves he didn't learn a goddamn thing from your institutions.

This is what the Republican punditry and leadership wants as their standard bearer going into 2024.

Gods help us.

Beware the Ides of trump

Saw this tweet recently:

 

PS and by "imminent" I don't mean Fanni Willis's cryptic formulation "legally imminent." This is imminent as in next few weeks. As in Beware the Ides of March...
Prosecutors Signal Criminal Charges for Trump Are Likely https://t.co/m97jNjJYWc

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) March 9, 2023

What this all refers to: the New York City prosecutors are about to wrap up their grand jury investigation into allegations trump paid bribes and covered up his affairs - especially with porn actress Stormy Daniels - during his 2016 Presidential campaign. From Bill Chapell and Andrea Bernstein at NPR:

Former President Donald Trump has been invited to testify before a New York City grand jury — a move that is widely understood to mean Trump could soon face criminal charges related to his financial dealings and the payment of hush money to Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star also known as Stormy Daniels.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office invited Trump to testify next week, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

In New York, an offer to speak in front of a grand jury is typically the last step before a criminal indictment. State law mandates that potential defendants must be given an opportunity to appear before a grand jury to answer questions before they are indicted...

Neither Trump nor his lawyer has signaled whether Trump would accept the invitation, but it is unlikely he would agree to appear. In recent weeks, former Trump campaign officials and business executives have traveled to the D.A.'s office in Lower Manhattan to testify under oath...

trump is unlikely to show, as all he'll do is plead the Fifth (like he did with the New York state tax fraud testimony).

Any possible indictments may not actually happen next week - as the grand jury has to deliberate matters, an official decision from the DA's office will come later - but seeing as how the deadline to testify just happens to fall near March 15th, some sense of poetic karma is in play here.

trump's been on social media screaming "WITCH HUNT" but also arguing that the statue of limitations on such investigations have passed. Under normal circumstances, he'd be right. But the DA's office apparently argued to a judge for extensions on the timeline - since trump was out-of-state between 2017 to 2021 causing damage elsewhere - to where it's unlikely trump's lawyers can throw the matter out on that technicality.

There had been a long time of inaction by Bragg - leading to several assistant DAs resigning in anger about it - to the point where nobody expected this to return as a problem for trump. However, when the criminal case into Trump Organization for tax fraud came back last December with Guilty verdicts across the board, Bragg reopened the matter with this grand jury. Something must have happened more than just the discovery that trump at last was vulnerable: reportedly the deeper examination of trump's finally-released tax returns exposed direct ties to trump's paying off his then-lawyer / bag-man Michael Cohen, which gave the DA's office proof they didn't have when they got Cohen to plead out back in 2018.

This isn't a time for celebration just yet: After all, there's no guarantees the NYC grand jury will come back with indictments to file. We're still looking at months if not years before any indictments come to actual trial, with trump kicking and screaming about it all the way down.

But this is a time for great preparation. If you're inclined, start putting in orders for the champagne. If you're concerned, start watching for angry MAGA drivers speeding about in their coal roller trucks flashing their AR-15s.

Let justice be done, America. trump is toast.

The Threat of Another War Of The (MAGA) Posers

Update: Thank you again to Batocchio at Crooks & Liars for including this article at Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please leave a comment here! Also, go back to the Round-Up and leave a tip, y'all.

Now that the House Republicans are entrenched in Congress, the crazy talk has gotten worse. The fearmongers among the MAGA caucus are openly talking "National Divorce" to separate the Red States from the Blue States. Where Marjorie Taylor Greene (aka MTG (or Empty G)) is happily pushing the idea that there should be permanent division between the states, even as we try to pretend to still be a United States of America as a nation.

There are layers to this bullshit. For the most part, this is Greene basically virtue vice signaling to her insurrectionist MAGA allies that their Culture War "owning the libs" is ongoing. Actual secession - as I and others have noted already - is a goddamn pipe dream that could never work.

But on the other hand, Greene is treading on dangerous ground: She is openly calling for an act of national division that historically leads to violence - every civil war that humanity ever inflicted on itself regardless of nation - and will likely trigger bloodshed no matter how she and her cohorts try to shill this.

Tom Sullivan over at Hullaballoo references what David French at the New York Times thinks of what Greene is calling for, and Sullivan takes a closer look to what the Far Right wingnuts are doing with their rhetoric of division:

French critiques Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s proposed “national divorce” in light of the last attempt at one in the 19th century. Yes, it’s unworkable. And yes, it’s insane. But what’s sanity got to do with it...?

Sullivan quotes French directly:

I’m haunted by James McPherson’s account of the prewar period in his seminal work, “Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.” Describing the South in the run-up to secession and war, he says it was possessed by an “unreasoning fury.” The immediate cause was Northern celebration of John Brown, the abolitionist who attempted to provoke a slave rebellion by seizing the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

In McPherson’s account, Northern support for Brown’s cause “provoked a paroxysm of anger more intense than the original reaction to the raid.” Southern paranoia was so profound that Texas’ secession declaration even included claims that Northern “emissaries” were distributing “poison” to slaves for the purpose of killing white citizens.

The South separated from the North and started a ruinous and futile war not because of calm deliberation, but rather because of hysteria and fear — including hysteria and fear whipped up by the partisan press.

So my question is not “Is divorce reasonable?” but rather, “Are we susceptible to the unreason that triggered war once before?”

This is where the decades of Far Right Media - hello, Fox Not-News! - actively misinforming and fearmongering towards their conservative audiences, building up the mindset not only that Americans are divided by Left and Right but also the divisions are unreconcilable. Back to Sullivan:

The fever that spawned the Jan. 6 insurrection has not ebbed, French writes. CPAC may be a shadow of its former self, but the froth of the authoritarian fanboys remains. The demographic shifts fueling their hatreds is not going away. Greene may be clownish, but the audience for her nonsense is serious...

Animosity is so entrenched (stoked daily by right-wing media) that I wonder if even an alien invasion could mend our fences...

Just look at how our nation is responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Most Americans actually support Ukrainians' efforts to repel Putin's war of empire-building; but the Far Right leadership and media outlets in America are siding with Russia, claiming Ukraine is at fault, and accusing Biden and Western Europe (NATO) of using the conflict as a proxy war to push global liberalism. If the aliens from Independence Day 1996 showed up, the Far Right media would likely call on the aliens to blow up the White House while Biden was still inside it.

This Republican-pushed Culture War is one not based on facts: It is a war based on grievance of privileges lost (or about to lose), based on fear determined by racism and sexism towards ethnic minorities and women. It's a war based on fantasies derived from Atlas Shrugged and Turner Diaries, where "manly Christian men" rise up against emasculating Godless librul elites to destroy the corrupt world in order to build a new Utopia on the ashes of the old.

You can see it in the "Alpha Male" social media bullshit, in the never-ending ragefests at their conservative confabs, in the nightly railings of Far Right pundits shilling nightmare stories based on rumor and conjecture and not a lick of fact.

If there's any good news, it's that a majority of Americans - regardless of the Red or Blue states where they reside - will not succumb to the calls of violence and secession that the Far Right are making. Whatever fantasy MTG has about a "National Divorce," it will not be a clean split by state because even the deepest Red State (okay, maybe not Wyoming) has a Blue urban metropolis (Texas and Florida have several) that would resist and secede themselves to stay with a Blue United States (Think what will happen when Texas tries to leave only to have Houston, San Antonio/Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, and El Paso - four of their major tax bases - refuse and demand their own statehoods with the USA).

As the recent poor showing at the CPAC convention this weekend proves, there's not a sustainable audience for Far Right outrage (It didn't help that scandal with the organizers scared half the GOP leadership away). While millions may have voted for donald trump in 2020, only mere thousands showed up for his January 6th Insurrection. Most Americans do not have the desire to inflict violence against their neighbors.

That's the good news. The bad news is that there ARE enough Americans among us who ARE willing to be violent towards their neighbors. As every mass shooting teaches us - almost every day now - all it takes is one wingnut Angry Guy with a military-grade assault rifle to break (or worse, destroy) a community.

This is not going to end well. At best, we need to remove the insurrectionists and secessionists from office as soon as possible. We still need to prepare ourselves for the violence that's sure to follow when those secessionist decide to make their bloody fantasy their reality.

Gods help us.

DeSantis Imposing Silence Upon Florida's Bloggers

With Ron DeSantis in full control of the Governor's office, with his allied Republicans in full control of the Florida Legislature, we are witnessing the hostile takeover of the Sunshine State.

DeSantis is rigging the state's public university system to the control of his lackey and corrupt buddies, he's looking to impose harsh restrictions going after gays and transgender teens/college students, he's carrying through his threats to go after any corporation - Disney, why the hell haven't you punched back? - that refuses to play his racist/sexist games, he's shutting down any criticism of him like the bully he is.

And the state GOP is happy to help him on that. Just tonight, I'm hearing the legislature is considering a bill that would target reporters and bloggers in Florida who write/say anything negative about the Governor (and other state elected officials, but we know who they're covering for here). Via Sam Sachs at WFLA News:

Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official...

You may argue "But Paul, this is for bloggers who receive payment." I don't get paid directly for this blog (I don't even get donations, at least none I've seen), but I know these assholes. Some genius wingnut prosecutor in their ranks would argue that any money I make from marketing myself - like the published books I link on here - counts under this law, and then force me to jump through their hoops to appease their regulations.

Once they've got ANY means to shut down anybody writing about them good or bad (especially anybody critical), these Republican bullies will abuse that law well enough to harass and target me and any others writing in Florida about their sins and follies.

And what exactly are we registering FOR? Are we registering for certification? That we have to submit our writings in advance to someone in the Legislative Services office or Ethics (ha!) Commission for editing and approval?

Are we required under this law to be censored? Are we required to beg for the "privilege" of criticizing anybody in power in the state of Florida?

This is straight-up violation of the United States Constitution and the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

One of the things about criticizing our elected officials is that we're calling for change, we're pointing out where the leadership is making mistakes, we're attempting to express our grievances through public outcry. Whether or not we have merit in our criticisms - if we're doing it on the facts or if we're idiots spewing conspiracy - should be up to the public forum (and the courts) to resolve that.

But DeSantis doesn't like to be criticized. He doesn't like getting pointed out where he's gotten things wrong. We've seen this when he and his allies went after the health care expert who kept tracking COVID responses in spite of DeSantis' attempts to pretend all was well. Ever since he won re-election - and ever since he began his Pandering To MAGA Voters 2024 Campaign - DeSantis is looking to inflict the same punishment on everybody else.

This is DeSantis proving himself the Imposter, as Junius warned: The imposter employs force instead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character by the sword.

If DeSantis and the Florida Republicans come after me for my blogging, I will fight back. If they go after anybody else in Florida who are bloggers, I will help them fight back the best I can.

Never let the bullies like DeSantis win.

Fight back, bloggers.

...

Anybody know a good Free Speech law firm by the by? I hope Poynter Institute has somebody pro bono...