Coping

I feel like I should be blogging more but I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Yeah, the thing about the blues is that it's hard to get away from it.

I've finally started some counseling - the person I'm meeting with confirms I'm dealing with serious depression and social anxiety - but it always takes time to get better from it. 

I have some good news in that one of my blog articles "All Which Wicked Designs" made it to the Finalist level of the Royal Palm Literary Awards, but gods help me it feels a bit underwhelming.

I mean, YAY, I did well, but for some reason
I'm not feeling optimistic about my chances this year.

Anyway, here I am. Coping.

The Crash The Nation Over The Cliff Party Is Back At It

Update: Many thanks again to Batocchio for adding this blog on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. Wish me luck on FWA's Royal Palm Literary Awards as one of my previous articles "All Which Wicked Designs" is a finalist this year. Please leave comments: I know it's a headache, but I wanna hear from peeps, thank ye.

Congress is about to get back into session, meaning another round of the Hunger Crazy Games is about to begin. Again. 

The Freedom Crash Everything And Burn Caucus is apparently making more hostage-taking demands while wielding rubber chickens, so Heather Digby Parton over at her Hullabaloo site has the details of what they want and how they want it:

But the outlines of what the MAGA caucus in the House plans to do in Washington are clear. They want to impeach Joe Biden, as we all predicted the moment they took the majority in 2022, and flood the zone with investigations. And they want to hold the government hostage by shutting down the government. If all goes well, they might even wreck the economy in the process...

The problem is that there isn’t a whole lot his loyal House majority can do to help him. They are running investigations as fast as they can think of them. Aside from all the bogus Hunter Biden nonsense and the absurd impending impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, they’re now set upon investigating the Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg and Fulton County prosecutor Fanni Willis with the supposed intention of defunding them for their alleged misconduct. They don’t seem to realize that these are local and state offices and are hardly dependent upon whatever small amounts of money the federal government might provide...

The Far Right Wingnut leadership are so into the performative outrage that - past their ability to pack the courts with anti-abortion pro-business jurists - they can't figure out how to actually do things. Even the threat of bringing DAs Bragg or Willis before a congressional committee hearing to get yelled at won't go the way they think it will. Anywho:

But they do have one card up their sleeves that it looks like they are going to play quite soon. You’ll recall that the House Freedom caucus was quite bent out of shape last spring when Kevin McCarthy made a deal with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling. They even staged a little hissy fit soon afterwards blocking a vote on the floor and putting the House into gridlock for week. They now plan to flex their muscles over the appropriations bills with a renewed threat of a government shutdown. And if the putative leader of their majority, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, doesn’t like it, they are pretty much on record saying that they are ready to pull the plug on his speakership...

During this summer’s recess the rebels, led by former Sen. Ted Cruz chief of staff, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, the battle lines have been drawn. The Freedom Caucus released a statement making it clear that they will oppose any short term funding bill that doesn’t meet their demands...

They are hand-waving about cuts, including Ukraine military funding and “woke” pentagon spending. But the most important ransom demand, which is gaining traction in the whole caucus, is to cut funding for the Department of Justice and the FBI if they don’t succumb to their demands. That’s right, the Republicans are now agitating to defund the police...

As Digby points out, these demands can't go very far because this bill has to go to the Senate, where the Democrats will refuse to vote on it and submit their own funding bill. Even if the Senate Dems relent to avoid a government shutdown, there is no way Biden will sign it: The Freedom Caucus' demands will undercut the relative independence of the Justice Department, as well as kneecap a major foreign policy agenda to keep Ukraine (and NATO) standing against Russian aggression.

What the House wingnuts want to do is simple: Force a shutdown, period. They want the economic chaos it will cause. They want to prove to their anti-government MAGA followers that they can deliver on "draining the swamp" of a bureaucracy that would dare regulate businesses, uphold civil rights for minorities, and enforce the tax code on millionaires. It's the same dream they've had since 2015 2013 2011 1996 and/or whenever there's a Democrat in the White House they can blame. You will notice these Freedom Caucus wingnuts refuse to crash the federal government when there's a Republican like Dubya or trump in the White House.

It's not that the shutdown will stop the federal criminal indictments against trump - the DOJ prioritizes those kind of legal cases and will operate on emergency funds - and indeed the shutdown would cut into the House GOP's efforts to impeach President Biden on whatever fictitious charge they can fantasize (as they have nothing on Hunter Biden tying to his dad). In that regard, the drama is unfocused.

The shutdown will do what the Far Right wants to see happen no matter what the legal system does to trump: the destruction of the American federal system while under a Democratic administration, so that the Republicans won't take the blame.

The Far Right ideology against the federal government - a government which leans towards a liberal ideology of serving the public trust - tells them they have to tear it down so that their ideal nation gets rebuilt on the ashes. They've been given orders - decades ago - by the billionaire lobbyists and think tank demagogues to shrink the federal government down to where Grover can drown it in his bathtub. The trick is to make sure the general voting public doesn't blame them for the tear-down.

And so we're getting the same-old rehash of the shutdown drama we've seen before. Only this time the drama could include the hilarity of watching Speaker McCarthy get tossed overboard in a No Confidence vote even if he caves to The Freedom Crash Everything And Burn Caucus, because of things like the Senate and Biden's veto pen that he can't control.

Part of me hopes that the chaos of undoing McCarthy's reign will convince the 18 or so House Republicans stuck in Biden-happy districts to flip parties to save their own skins from the internal fighting their half of the House is facing. It's unlikely - Republicans would rather resign and take a cushy think tank gig than flip parties - but wouldn't it be pretty to think it.

In the meantime, trump's January 6th trial is scheduled for March 4, 2024. The Manhattan trial on tax evasion and hush-money bribes to Stormy Daniels is set for March 25, 2024. The Mar-A-Lago classified docs trial is set for May 20, 2024. And DA Willis is pushing to get everyone including trump on her election fraud/RICO charges in the courthouse by October of this year (as a number of defendants are pushing for speedy trials of their own).

Tick-tock, Shitgibbon. There's nothing the House wingnuts can do to save you. They're too busy crashing the nation for their own ends.

Mug Shot Day

I will not post the mugshot of donald j. trump, indicted on counts of racketeering and other crimes in the state of Georgia, but I will provide a link to NPR that shows it.

trump is scowling in the photo. According to reports, he told his handlers he was going to do is best Churchill impression, to act out the 'stern, stubborn, stoic' behavior of one of the Western world's iconic leaders. Instead, he looks pouty, petulant, miserable. The thing about trump, he rarely smiles. Every other time, he's frustrated or upset or annoyed. 

The only times trump smiles are when he knows he's humiliated another human being, and that gets him happy.

Knowing trump, he's going to want to use this mug shot to put on t-shirts and coffee mugs and posters and all the merch he can think of to raise money for his legal defense his own pockets. It's not something any of us should look forward to, but this mug shot and processing into the Fulton County judicial system was necessary if we as a nation are going to hold trump and his cohorts accountable for the crimes they committed trying to stop the 2020 election results.

Let justice be done. And don't buy any fcking t-shirts of his mug shot. It's not worth it.

The 2024 Republican Dash to Suck Up to MAGA Voters In Case trump Ends Up In Cell Block Six

There's a Republican presidential primary debate tonight and I don't wanna watch. NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE ME WATCH I DON'T WANNA. /pout 

I do, however, feel an obligation to rate and review the idiotic Republican pretenders to trump's dark throne that are placing themselves on the floor tonight for public humiliation. Only because I did this for the Democratic candidates back in 2019 who were running for 2020, and I ought to maintain a balance of sorts.

Much like I said back then, I am tired already of the constant horse-race mentality of mainstream media that has us overwhelmed with all this partisan posturing in public. We need laws in place to force the political parties - and the goddamned hacks who jump out two years early to start fundraising to fill their pockets with millions in campaign cash - to keep these election campaigns to the calendar year the election takes place (January 2nd, not a damn thing happens before then upon pain of permanent blockage from elected or nominated office). It's the only way to keep this goddamned pandering to a goddamned minimum.

Tonight's debate arguably isn't even going to have the biggest draw for the Far Right Republican voting base: trump decided to avoid attending, partly because he doesn't even need to show up to win (his polling lead is that huge) and partly because he's due in Fulton County Georgia tomorrow for his mug shot and arraignment on his FOURTH pending criminal indictments. This slogfest is going to be made up of the second-tier half-dead wannabes who think they have a shot at the nomination should trump actually be in a jail cell by the time the 2024 RNC Convention takes place. As Mark Leibovich at the Atlantic (paywalled) notes, this will be a tedious affair made up of 'listless vessels':

So why should the rest of us bother? Would anyone watch a Mike Tyson fight if Iron Mike wasn’t actually fighting? Or The Sopranos, if Tony skipped the show for a therapy session (with Tucker Carlson)?...

Tonight’s pageant of also-rans must go on too. The Republican National Committee has decreed this kickoff debate to be a landmark event, sanctifying August 23 as a key date in the 2024 cycle. (“Cycle” feels like an especially apt cliché here—events spinning hypnotically in circles.) Never mind that Trump upended the traditional presidential campaign cycle years ago, and that it is now dictated by whatever whim he decides to follow at a given moment. No matter how much thunder Trump steals from this proceeding—by skipping it, counterprogramming it with Tucker, and potentially following it up with a morning-after mug shot—everyone else is still required to treat this spectacle as some big and pivotal showdown.

As such, the media will swarm into town—because this is what we do and what we love (and because datelines impress). The host network, Fox News, will hype the clash—the “Melee in Milwaukee,” or some such. One-liners are being buffed, comebacks polished, and umbrage rehearsed. And no matter how effective certain gambits are deemed to be in practice, the absence of the GOP’s inescapable front-runner will only underscore how impotent the rest of the field has made themselves...

Even so, tonight’s contest will inevitably suffer from two basic structural flaws. The main point, theoretically, of a political debate is to try to persuade voters to support your campaign instead of the other candidates’. But that presupposes a constituency of voters who can be persuaded by hearing a set of facts, or are open to being educated. This, on the whole, is not the audience we have here. A large and determinative and still deeply committed portion of the GOP electorate—the MAGA sector—has been more or less a closed box for seven years now...

The other structural defect involves the likely self-neutering of tonight’s putative gladiators. Ideally, a debate features participants who actually want to win. That generally requires a willingness to attack their biggest adversary, whether he’s participating in the event or not, and especially when he holds a massive lead over them. Other than Kamikaze Christie, whom Republicans will almost certainly not nominate, most of the remaining “challengers” on the stage seem content to play for second place—running mate or 2028...

Seriously, none of these suckers will be trump's running mate: trump reportedly wants a woman Veep candidate to counter Kamala Harris, and most of these candidates already know working for trump will put them in the crosshairs with trump AND the MAGA base should they step out of line to protect their own asses like Pence did on January 6th. Haley, the only woman on-stage tonight, ought to be too smart to volunteer for that shit-job. I also doubt Pence will volunteer a second go-around as a whipping boy. Back to Leibovich:

Whether intentionally or not, DeSantis actually coined something memorable the other day when he chided Trump’s supporters for mindlessly following his every pronouncement—“listless vessels,” he called them. (He later said that he was referring to Trump’s endorsers in Congress, not voters.) This struck me as sneaky eloquence from DeSantis, or whoever wrote the line for him. But again, the phrase carried a strong whiff of projection as DeSantis prepared to lead the real parade of listless vessels to Milwaukee, content to bob along in the wake of the Titanic.

DeSantis has truly been a terrible campaigner, losing financial backers and stunning his few attendees with unsettling, almost-inhuman behavior at his rallies. He's performing much in the same way the flame-outs of 2016 performed, like Scott Walker and Jeb! Bush before him: Lacking any true charisma and unable to generate enthusiasm. The rest of the field has been equally unmemorable save for Christie - whose bullying always delights the punditry - and newbie businessman Vivek Ramaswamy - whose conspiracy-addled gaslighting has made him into this year's Mini-trump.

In the meantime, here's a scorecard of the likely Republican assholes candidates (the highest office currently known, and the state they represent) vying for their party base's vote when the state-by-state primaries do take place. Doing this in alphabetical order because HAHA trump you're in last.

Doug Burgum: Governor, North Dakota

Role as: The Guy Who Bribed Republican Voters Into Donating To His Campaign With Gift Cards So He Could Qualify For This Debate (no, seriously).

Funny thing is, Burgum has to call in sick with a "leg injury" during a basketball pick-up game (???) and may not attend his own political funeral, uh this debate. Otherwise, he'd have to spend most of the evening explaining where North Dakota even IS on the map. Update: Burgum decided to show up after all, so he's not THAT cowardly.

Burgum Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Burgum Can Win It All If: The gift cards he promised to voters in the general election were all $5000.00 per person Actually, that would be illegal. And it's unlikely he'll ever get a general voting population defending the conservative agenda he's pushed at the state level and will threaten to inflict on America.

Chris Christie: Governor, New Jersey

Role as: The Guy Who Claims He Likes Bruce Springsteen (but doesn't seem to understand the lyrics railing against HIM and his fellow greed-heads).

Christie is the one most prepped and pumped for the debate stage if only because it gives him the chance to play out his role as Bully, one of the few things he does well. The last time he primaried in 2016, he was the one who nuked Marco Rubio from orbit and destroyed the Beltway Media's fair-haired alternative to trump. If the audience is tuning in tonight, it's to see how quickly Christie gives the likes of DeSantis an atomic wedgie. 

Christie Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Christie Can Win It All If: He can successfully recall Bruce's lyrics to "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and tearfully recant his un-Boss-like ways. Otherwise, the general voting population is going to reject his bully tactics for the more congenial Biden.

Ron DeSantis: Governor, Florida

Role as: Anti-Woke Thin-Skinned Racist Sexist Disney Villain

DeSantis is the candidate who has done the most damage to his own state in pursuit of MAGA voter support, and the candidate who's done the least to actually get any MAGA voters to flip to him. His ROI is terrible. Any early lead he's had at the beginning of this horse race has dwindled to where a virtual noob like Ramaswamy is neck-and-neck. And Christie's going to be there to pounce and make DeSantis grind his teeth like never before.

DeSantis Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

DeSantis Can Win It All If: Gods help us if he does. DeSantis' behavior governing Florida - the mismanagement masquerading as leadership, the self-destructive micromanaging, the short-sighted mistakes - will all be transferred to the federal level where his governing style of harassing critics and destroying institutions to give his cronies power and leverage will be on a Jacksonian scale. While any of the Republican candidates will be ideological nightmares if they get into the White House, DeSantis is genuinely terrifying in that he will replicate trump's efforts to seize and maintain power no matter what, with a better idea of how to actually succeed at it.

Nikki Haley: Governor, South Carolina

Role as: The Pollyanna Trying to Campaign as Reagan But Messaging Like Ann Coulter

Haley is jumping into this campaign arguably to present a figure who is known for a certain level of competence and savvy, but she's still saddled with a GOP platform that will force her to support incompetence, fearmongering, and tax cut greed. She's also campaigning to a political party that still can't handle any woman in a legitimate leadership role, which is going to force her into some uncomfortable public stances if she can make it to the general election stage.

Haley Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Haley Can Win It All If: She can truly motivate a dying, out-of-power moderate base that she could appeal to. Problem is, there are no true moderates left in the modern Republican Party, and she's not going to rally enough of them to a primary race that's been alienating them since 2008.

Ada Hutchinson: Governor, Arkansas

Role as: The Guy From Arkansas Who's Not as Creepy As Mike Huckabee

Hutchinson is someone who barely made the cut for tonight's debate, which tells you how low in the rankings he's already playing at. While he can appeal to those who like experience in their presidential candidates, Hutchinson doesn't have as great a national profile as the others and will suffer as a result. He's not going to offer anything any different from what Christie, DeSantis, Haley, Burgum, or Scott are going to offer.

Hutchinson Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Hutchinson Can Win It All If: Somewhere between winning the GOP primary (or the emergency RNC vote) and the November general election he can somehow gaslight his way past the anti-abortion, racism, tax-cut deregulatory bullsh-t he's been selling as both governor and primary candidate.

Robert Kennedy Jr: Democratic Asshole, New York

Role as: Conspiracy-driven Anti-Vax Trojan Horse sent by Republicans to undermine Biden's incumbency run

I know Kennedy's running as a Democrat and he's not on tonight's debate list, but if you're getting most of your campaign funding from REPUBLICAN backers then goddamn you: You're running as a Republican. Go to hell, Junior.

Mike Pence: Vice President, Indiana

Role as: The Scapegoat who can't admit he got suckered and victimized by trump 

Pence is either genuinely clueless that most of the Republican voting base views him as a traitor for failing to cheat the Electoral count for trump back on January 6th, or he's running to validate his own self-worth convinced he's the true future of the Republican party once trump is behind bars. Either way, Pence has no true charisma that appeals at a national level: Another Scott Walker leading himself to primary humiliation.

Pence Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. Seriously, if this emergency vote happens, Pence is one of the few party leaders with any backroom power to get the party to risk it all on him (if the leadership convince themselves the betrayed MAGA base will change their minds).

Pence Can Win It All If: This is one of the most unlikely things even if Pence navigates his way to the top of the GOP ticket. As mentioned before, Pence is a laughing stock to the voting public at large, and either has to carry the baggage of being associated with trump's ill-run presidency or coping with an angry MAGA voting base that will refuse to turn up next November.

Vivak Ramaswamy: Businessman, Ohio

Role as: The Next CEO Galtian Asshole Who Thinks He Can Run Government Like a Business

Ramaswamy is coming from a proud Republican tradition of at least one financial figure - Forbes, Cain, Foriana, in some respects Dubya and Mitt - jumping into the primary race thinking he's reinvented the wheel when it comes to governance. Instead, he's shilling the same deregulatory tax-cutting damage as before campaigning on a top-down Unitary Executive agenda to turn the White House into a dictatorship (gee, we've heard that before), while making a hard case of going "anti-woke" in ways that make DeSantis look like he's mumbling.  

Ramaswamy Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. Or if he can sway the MAGA base with his 9/11 Truther, anti-abortion, racist, sexist, fearmongering messaging to back him before the party leaders can choose among their own.

Ramaswamy Can Win It All If: he can make voters look past the reality he's a first-generation son of immigrants bashing the very system of multicultural that allowed him to become a businessman and presidential candidate in the first place. The scary thing is that his rise in the polls this cycle mimics the similar rise that trump enjoyed in the 2016 primaries: Meaning if trump is truly eliminated from the ballot due to a slight case of JAIL, Vivak could replace him among MAGA voters willing to look past his ethnicity and embrace his conspiracy-driven gaslighting.

Tim Scott: Senator, South Carolina

Role as: The Anti-Obama Beard

Arguably one of the few candidates on the stage tonight who actually HAS a political career of some success (and none of the baggage that Christie has), Scott is most often the GOP figurehead that the racists in their ranks point to and say "Look, we vote for him, clearly we're not racist!" even though Scott parrots many of the same anti-affirmative action talking points and supports many of the same social conservative issues that most voting Blacks don't.

Scott Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. If Pence doesn't appeal to the backroom party bosses looking to replace a convicted trump, Scott is the next most likely who will.

Scott Can Win It All If: Scott can actually appeal to general voters in spite of his conservative bona fides. In my humble but ill-informed opinion, he might actually be the one candidate who could give Biden some trouble in the general election on matters of race relations. Scott will have problems appealing to voters if abortion is the major topic, and he is going to get stuck defending a GOP platform that will be racist towards immigrants and sexist towards women.

Donald Trump: Indicted Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice), Ugh do I HAVE to List Him as Florida

Role as: The Eternal Shitgibbon. If you prefer, The Guy On Four (AND COUNTING) Criminal Trials Involving His Misconduct in Both Business And the Presidency

Trump Can Win the Party Nomination If: Gods help us, he's already polling in the lead, and there is still solid evidence that Republicans will vote for a convicted trump. However, if trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024, the Party has every reason to hold an emergency vote to field a replacement choice.

Trump Can Win It All If: he cheats. Again. If he can get the Russians to meddle like he did in 2016, if he can get the FBI to spring another October Surprise like Comey did on Hillary weeks before the general election, if he can get Red state legislatures in states voting for Biden to nullify the Electoral count like he wanted to in 2020, if he can get a Republican-controlled branch of Congress to refuse a Biden Electoral win... Then it's chaos. And trump is ALL ABOUT THE GODDAMN CHAOS.

Among these choices, I dare not make a recommendation. My track record predicting these things have been horrendous: Backing Edwards in 2008 (before knowing his adultery), Backing Harris (and then Warren) over Biden in 2020), Thinking Romney had the nomination in 2008 (instead of McCain, whom I did favor but didn't think would win primaries), Thinking Walker had it sewn up in 2016 (he didn't even make it through the 2015 debates).

If I can say anything, it's that above all DO NOT VOTE trump. He's not worth it. He's going to get convicted one way or another and it will - fairly - drag the rest of the Republican ticket down with him. In general, I've been screaming to NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN at all for decades now, but you've seen how little influence I've had there (grrr).

In the meantime, don't watch any of the debates. They're boring and dull and the highlight reel on YouTube easier to digest. Gnight, krewe.

P.S. Cmon Tampa Bay Rays reclaim the AL East lead into the postseason!!!

Disqualifying trump

As we bear witness to the growing indictments surrounding donald trump, as we enter into a historic moment where every alleged crime in trump's name and on trump's orders all build into the Trial of the (21st) Century, there are serious questions about how far the consequences should apply to trump should he be found guilty on even one felony out of the 91 (so far) he's facing.

The implications of a guilty verdict are staggering: Not only because we've never had in American history any former President convicted like that in a court of law, but also because trump is frantically campaigning for another term as President to use that office to avoid any conviction or jail time.

It's been discussed elsewhere, and mentioned a few times at this blog, that trump could be blocked from his Presidential campaign, to avoid the risk of a convicted candidate somehow winning the Electoral College votes. There's a provision in the 14th Amendment Section 3:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof...

Considering the charges trump faces regarding his - and his allies' - efforts before and during the January 6th Insurrection, there is hope that a conviction on any of those charges will trigger that clause and bar trump from any office no matter how much he screams "unfair".

There are now arguments - from respected legal and constitutional scholars - that we don't even need a conviction to bar trump from the Presidency (and his last remaining refuge from justice). Just on the evidence alone trump's conduct merits the disqualification, according to J. Michael Luttig - former federal judge from the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals - and Laurence H. Tribe - Emeritus professor of constitutional law at Harvard - over at The Atlantic (paywalled):

The historically unprecedented federal and state indictments of former President Donald Trump have prompted many to ask whether his conviction pursuant to any or all of these indictments would be either necessary or sufficient to deny him the office of the presidency in 2024.

Having thought long and deeply about the text, history, and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause for much of our professional careers, both of us concluded some years ago that, in fact, a conviction would be beside the point. The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceedings and, indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation. The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup.

The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause...

And by "we," Luttig and Tribe are asking the federal officers currently upholding the Constitution - the judges, the prosecutors, the elected officials - as well as the public at large to make the call.

Someone, somewhere in the chain of command between the Justice Department or the Judiciary branch of government is going to have to step up and enforce that clause.

Someone among the ranks of Republican candidates for 2024, any of trump's challengers for those primaries, needs to consider filing a legal ruling to have the GOP remove trump's name from consideration due to that amendment. Someone among the ranks of the Republican party leadership itself - elected officials in Congress, party administrators, financial backers, anybody - has to make the hard decision here.

It can't be a Democrat making this move: Too many people - even fellow Democrats - would consider it too much a partisan ploy.

Thing is, whoever steps up to do this is also stepping up to take the hit when trump's rabid voting base goes on the warpath. We are talking about cultish MAGA followers who believe every trumpian lie, buy every trumpian grift, and revel in every trumpian call to violence. There's already been a trump supporter in Texas put in jail this week for issuing death threats against the judge overseeing trump's January 6th indictments. 

trump himself is still - even after multiple warnings from different judges about his public statements threatening juries and prosecutors as well as themselves - posting social media rants designed to keep his MAGA believers riled up and ready to rise up.

Anybody actively stopping trump from regaining the Oval Office - even using a lawful method - will see a bloodthirsty rampage against them.

trump may be courting potential contempt charges and detainment if he keeps doing this, but in all respect this is one of the few means left at his disposal to avoid all accountability. I wrote before that trump's political "career" - such as it is - is the last con game he's got left. There is nothing else past this that will refill his coffers to pay off his (growing) debts. trump needs to re-enter the White House and receive that OLC protection from criminal liability to save his own ass.

And we all know what will happen if trump does regain the Presidency. he dare not leave that office again. he and his Far Right allies will shred whatever's left of the Constitution under whichever excuse he can wield to ensure he stays in there - grifting and stealing millions more, and inflicting pain upon the people he hates from immigrants to political rivals - until he dies.

Should we dare risk the possibility that trump somehow wins - by hook or by crook, but knowing trump's previous actions in 2016 and 2020 it will definitely be by crook - in November 2024?

Or should we risk the trigger of open civil war with the Far Right population - already eager to fulfill their Turner Diaries fantasies - by stopping trump from campaigning for an office he's already debased and threatens to abuse again? We run the risk of that violence if trump fairly loses the next election, on a far greater scale than the violence they unleashed on January 6th.

There is even the risk that trump and his lawyers can force delays on all of the criminal trials he's facing to where he won't see a conviction before Election Day, leaving open the possibility of his gaslighting enough voters into supporting him even as his legal troubles are so serious he does not deserve that support.

Whoever is in a legal position to do so must refer to the 14th Amendment and prevent trump from a Presidency he does not deserve, and hold him accountable for the oath of office he clearly violated. This is too serious a matter to "leave to the voters," as we've seen time and again the power of the vote twisted or undone to allow the likes of trump to avoid any semblance of justice and accountability.

That may not happen, alas. The political will to make such a move is not hearty enough. It may take a jury convicting trump - either on the documents case in Mar-A-Lago, either on the Insurrection case in DC, in any pending federal indictments trump has yet to face - for one of the judges or prosecutors to push for the 14th Amendment to apply.

We best pray for speedy trials. I've been asking for the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas of this year, but it's looking like January through May in 2024 for now.

Let justice be done. trump deserves disqualification from office. Our nation needs to hurry on ensuring that.

Signing a 2024 Florida Referendum for Women's Power to Choose

The State of Florida has a petition-initiative method of putting state amendments to a referendum so that every two years there's at least a handful of referenda on the ballots.

Right now, there's a petition to get a Pro-Choice abortion amendment on the 2024 referendum needing more signatures.

Here's the wording:

No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.

It would prevent the Republican-controlled legislature - and that bully DeSantis - from passing any harsher restrictions on abortion access. The state is currently set at 15 weeks, which is hampered by the various roadblocks that other laws use to slow a woman's ability to schedule and have an abortion, and the restrictions harm women in later stages of pregnancy suffering medical heartbreaks and life-threatening emergencies.

If you're a Florida resident and a registered voter and you believe that women (and their health care providers) should have their say in their own health care, that there are times when abortion is a valid choice, then please visit that link, click on the Petition button to download the PDF form, fill out and mail it in as soon as possible, please and thank you.

Republicans do NOT represent the majority of Americans who believe abortion should be a choice, but with the current gerrymandering tricks skewing political power to them we are not going to get the representation we deserve. This amendment will give power to our representation, and give women their power to choose - with proper medical advice - for themselves.

Desperate Ron is Desperate

Remember when Florida's idiot governor Ron DeSantis decided to go to war with Disney World and in return got blindsided by legal maneuvers that underscored how idiotic he was?

Well, DeSantis came up with a new gameplan: Begging Disney Inc to just give up and stop fighting him. I may be embellishing his exact words but that's how it's sounding. Kevin Breuninger at CNBC has the official report on it: 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said that Disney CEO Bob Iger should drop his company’s lawsuit accusing the Republican governor of political retaliation.

“They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit,” DeSantis said in an interview with CNBC’s “Last Call” set to air in full at 7 p.m. ET.

“So what I would say is, drop the lawsuit,” the governor said when asked what he would tell Iger if he were to give him a call today...

“So all we want to do is treat everybody the same, and let’s move forward. I’m totally fine with that. But I’m not fine with giving extraordinary privileges, you know, to one special company at the exclusion of everybody else,” he said...

There's a criminal investigation going on right now where DeSantis and his state buddies did provide special favors to a company, but I digress. Back to Breuninger:

In February, DeSantis signed a bill putting the district under his control by letting him handpick its five-member board of supervisors. That new board accused Disney of thwarting its power by crafting long-term development deals. In April, the DeSantis board voted to nullify those contracts, prompting Disney to sue in federal court.

The company alleges DeSantis “orchestrated at every step” a campaign of government retaliation “as punishment for Disney’s protected speech.”

DeSantis and the other defendants in the lawsuit have asked for the case to be dismissed.

The governor said in Monday’s interview that he and his allies have “basically moved on” from the feud.

“I would just say, go back to what you did well. I think it’s going to be the right business decision, and all that,” he said...

Know what I hear in DeSantis' pleadings?

Panic.

DeSantis is getting trounced in the primaries before the debates even start. His plan to worm his way into the Far Right voting base's hearts is failing because he doesn't have the crass charisma that trump has. All of his pandering - the legislation to curtail abortion in the state, the anti-gay anti-trans laws, The War Against Woke, the dismantling of Florida's educational system, literal whitewashing of history to deny slavery's true impact on all Americans both Black and White - hasn't won many nationwide MAGA voters to make himself the party's alternate choice if/when trump becomes unavailable as a candidate due to a slight case of JAIL.

DeSantis needs a clear victory in the Culture War he's committed to fighting. Ergo, he needs Disney's scalp on a pike to show off to voters he can crush his enemies.

Thing is, Disney is bigger and more powerful than any mere governor of a state. They've spent decades protecting their brand from trademark offenders and copycats, winning enough battles to remind everyone on the planet you do not fuck with Disney.

CEO Iger and the rest of the corporation has to understand if they roll over now for DeSantis - before any courts have even heard the matter at hand - they become the target of every other tin-pot politician in other states looking to tear apart the "diversity" brand that made the company billions in profits.

If DeSantis really wants to end the lawsuits - if he REALLY wants to prove he's "moved on" from the battle - he needs to undo the legislation that took away Disney's tax district, and DeSantis needs to shut down his cronyist committee he put into place to harass the Disney corporation. If DeSantis goes the extra mile to undo the anti-gay anti-trans laws he signed, that would help smooth over some of the bad feelings he's created in this whole mess.

And DeSantis needs to apologize to Princess Lilibet of Sussex for wasting everyone's time.

Otherwise, Disney ought to pile on the lawyers and lawsuits until Desperate Ron begs for utter mercy.

Remind the world, Iger: Nobody fucks with Disney.

Georgia Indicts trump and his Big Lie

At last.

Stephen Fowler over at NPR has the basics: 

A grand jury in Georgia has indicted Donald Trump for his role in failed efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results, implicating the former president as the head of a sweeping conspiracy to subvert his defeat.

It's the fourth indictment in as many months for Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. And it's part of a massive case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis under Georgia's racketeering law, ensnaring a number of defendants that the DA alleges acted as part of a coordinated effort to pressure officials to change the election outcome.

In an indictment handed up Monday, an Atlanta-based grand jury outlined a series of charges against Trump, including violation of the Georgia RICO law and solicitation of a violation of an oath by a public officer.

RICO by the by is a racketeering charge, meaning trump and others engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to commit multiple crimes. Emptywheel - you know what I need to call her by name, so hello Marcy Wheeler! - has more details on the implications of trump getting hit by RICO:

To explain how, I want to first show that the indictment is, fundamentally, about protecting the integrity of Georgia’s government and elections. To see that, it helps to read counts 2 through 41 before reading the RICO charge, which is laid out in 70 pages describing 161 overt acts, many of which took place outside of Georgia...

LIES TO AND SOLICITATION OF GEORGIA OFFICIALS

Count 2 though Count 7: False claims and illegal requests made, many by Rudy Giuliani, before the fake electors scheme. These were lies told to official bodies of Georgia state government, and charging them is an attempt to prevent corruption in state government.

Count 23 through Count 26 charge Rudy, Ray Smith, and Robert Cheely with false claims and solicitations on December 30 — similar in structure and purpose to Counts 2 through 7.

Count 28 charges both Trump and Mark Meadows for the January 2 call to Brad Raffensperger. Count 29 charges Trump for the lies he told during the call.

Counts 38 and 39 charge Trump with lies and solicitations of Brad Raffensperger on September 17, 2021.

FAKE ELECTORS

Count 8 through Count 19: These are a series of six paired charges tied to various kinds of fraud involved with the fake electors. In each pair, the first count charges David Shafer, Shawn Still, and Cathleen Latham for doing the fraudulent thing, and the second count charges Trump, Rudy, John Eastman, Ken Chesebro, Ray Smith, Robert Cheely, and Mike Roman with soliciting the fraudulent thing. They’re a near parallel to the Michigan charges against the fake electors, except that in Georgia only the three most culpable fake electors are charged, and there’s a mirror charge for Trump’s side of the conspiracy.

ATTEMPTS TO ENTRAP RUBY FREEMAN

Counts 20 and 21 and : These charge two efforts to defraud Ruby Freeman by offering her help when in fact they were an attempt to entrap her.

Count 30 and Count 31 charge aspects of a plot to get Kanye’s publicist to travel from Illinois to Georgia to entrap Ruby Freeman into making false claims.

LIES ABOUT GEORGIA

Count 22 charges Jeffrey Clark for his attempts to get DOJ to claim the Georgia election was fraudulent.

Count 27 charges Trump and Eastman with lying about Georgia’s results in a lawsuit.

TAMPERING WITH COFFEE COUNTY TABULATORS

Count 32 through Count 37 charge Sidney Powell, Latham, and two others for tampering with the Coffee County vote tabulators. Again, this has a parallel in the Michigan charges against Matt DePerno and two others.

LIES DURING THE INVESTIGATION

Count 40 charges David Shafer with false statements told during the investigation.

Count 41 charges Robert Cheely with perjury for false claims made during the investigation.

As I understand it, these are the charges on which the RICO conspiracy is built. The RICO conspiracy gives prosecutors additional tools and penalties with which to prosecute this (similar to the conspiracy law charged at the federal level)...

That's a lot of criming (relax, Spellchecker, we can use slang while blogging), but what are the implications surrounding these particular indictments compared to the other three (and counting) trump and cohorts are facing? Why is this one a bigger deal than most?

One of the common elements in the Georgia indictment is the word "lies". Over and over, DA Willis spells out how trump and company lied and kept lying to other state officials in order to get them to violate the integrity of the 2020 election results. They have trump lying in a lawsuit, they have one underling Robert Cheely charged with straight-up perjury to the grand jury, they had people lying to county-level elections official Ruby Freeman to get her to "confess" to rigging ballots.

All of these lies, serving to the Big Lie that trump pushed and keeps pushing about the 2020 results. trump's Big Lie that the election "was stolen" and he "fairly" won.

I blogged about trump's Big Lie before, and why he can't stop:

Trump has made it clear he views the world in the simplest of terms: That people are divided into Winners and Suckers, and that HE (champion and most excellent of the former group) shall never be lumped in with the latter.

So just on this mindset alone, trump cannot admit – not to others, not to himself – that he lost... 

In one respect, trump lost in 2016: The Popular vote clearly went for Hillary. But due to the broken and anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College, trump squeaked into winning three battleground states with literally mere hundreds of votes that gave him their Electoral Votes instead. It should be noted that trump promptly crowed – against all evidence – that he had won a LANDSLIDE, not just the College but also the Popular vote, and claimed it was the greatest victory in history (ignoring the Electoral and Popular vote blowouts of 1984 and 1932 (we don't count Nixon's 1972 blowout because the cheating exposed by the Watergate scandal negates that)).

Trump can't crow like that this time. The illusion of the Electoral College can't grant him that excuse. So he has to settle on denial. Constant, whining denial that he's the victim of voter fraud and to get us to pity him back into office...

The horrifying thing was how easily trump got fellow Republicans to buy into his Big Lie all because the GOP fears the loss of political power:

The Republicans are stuck with the Big Lie because it happens to fit this One Truth:

The Republican Party cannot and will not share power with a Democratic Party they view as un-American and thus illegitimate.

Somewhere back in time - you can argue happening between the rise of the conservative Southern Strategy in the late 1960s or the rise of Saint Ronnie in the 1980s or the corruption of Newt's Contract On America in the 1990s - the Republican Party bought into the idea that only they were true God-fearing God-chosen Gun-worshiping patriots...

But the Republicans have a problem. Where their One Truth was merely a world-view that did not expose itself to self-destructive implosion (Republicans could keep believing it and still function rationally in polite society), the Big Lie is a direct attack on the Real World that sooner rather than later is going to hit the Brick Wall of Unbreakable Facts. The Big Lie compels trump's believers into direct action - SEE the January 6th Insurrection - and these actions have legal consequences where the Big Lie has not and cannot prevail.

The Republicans are betting on their Big Lie carrying them forward into the future. But it's a Big Lie stuck in the past of a failed 2020 election, pushed constantly by a Big Liar in trump who cannot avoid his impending fate either in civil or criminal courts.

With the Georgia indictments, we are at that moment of Truth for the Republican Party as a whole. DA Willis and her team are making a direct rebuke to trump's Big Lie, confronting it with facts and evidence that not only were the voted counted fairly but that trump and his people intentionally worked to subvert those fair counts.

I am paraphrasing Jean-Luc Picard here, in one of the greatest quotes about the quest for justice. Courtrooms are crucibles: In a courtroom we burn away irrelevancies (the lies and misunderstandings) until we are left with a pure product - the truth (based on fact), for all time. For all of trump's bullshitting at his rallies, for all of the deflection and deception by the Far Right media, for all the spineless quibbling of other Republican leaders who fail to hold trump to the factual truth, in a court of law those lies and deceptions cannot withstand scrutiny. trump will confront - at last - the lies he's been telling to everyone and even to himself, and that those lies have no power to keep him in power.

The reason why I remain so optimistic - giddy, even - about the criminal cases leveled against trump is that these courtrooms are going to be the few places where trump will be held accountable for the ongoing costs of destruction and ruin he has built up over the decades. trump's greed, trump's racism, trump's sexism, trump's rage, trump's delusions of grandeur... All of that finally getting added up and presented as a bill way past due that he has to pay.

Let trump face his lies and failures before the 2024 elections. Let the nation come to terms with the reality that trump should never hold any elected office again.

Let justice be done. Let truth prevail. At last.

What If: How 2024 Could Play Out

(Update: Many thanks to Tengrain for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please leave a comment below, or Bluesky me at @paulwartenberg or Spoutify me at @paulwartenberg and Tweet me at... at... DAMN YOU MUSK THE X IS TERRIBLE)

So... All things being equal (although they're not) we are looking at a 2024 Presidential decision between the incumbent Joe Biden and the indicted donald trump.

In this day and age, a first-termer like Biden is always going to run for a second term. And with this corrupt Republican Party, a past-termer like trump is going to run again in order to use the legal protections of the Presidency to negate any criminal convictions that might occur from any three four okay it could get as high as five trials facing him between now and November 2024.

The question we face is not "Will an indicted trump survive a competitive primary against a dozen opponents?" -  because that GOP primary won't be competitive: trump is polling above 50 percent among likely primary voters and so the Republicans are stuck with a potential felon as front-runner - the question will be "How will this be any different from 2020?"

We're facing one of the rare repeats in Presidential campaigning, where the same major party candidates face off in back-to-back election years (anything before 1800 will not fit as party tickets did not exist before then). To my knowledge, there's only been John Q. Adams vs. Andrew Jackson (1824 and 1828),  Martin Van Buren vs. William Henry Harrison (1836 and 1840), Benjamin Harrison vs. Grover Cleveland (1888 and 1892), William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan (1896 and 1900), and last with Dwight D Eisenhower vs Adali Stevenson (1952 and 1956).

Half of those repeats happened due to unusual circumstances: with shifts in how candidates got on ballot,  to formations of new parties, to extreme failures of Electoral College results that justified a losing candidate (Jackson in 1828, Cleveland in 1892) running again out of a sense of revenge/defending the popular will over the electoral will.

Losing candidates throughout Presidential campaign histories tended to have the good sense to walk away if they lost the popular vote. Occasionally you'll get the Ambitious types - the Clays - or the Ideological obsessives - the Bryans - who can dominate their party well past their expiration dates and keep running until the party had enough (third time losing) and moved on to fresher talent. By the 20th Century as the Democrats and Republicans stabilized and created deep talent pools, most losing candidates were one-and-done, so rematches stopped happening. Until now, with trump unable to admit he ever loses and able to dominate the modern Republican Party to pretty much bully his way back into a remake of the 2020 elections.

By common logic, we ought to project the results for 2024 to reflect the results of 2020 since it's the same candidates - Biden vs. trump - running pretty much the same platforms - Biden's economic policies of job growth, women's rights, and rebuilding manufacturing/infrastructure vs. trump's anti-immigrant, anti-trade, tax-cuts for the rich, "drain the swamp" destruction of a functioning federal government - all over again.

The actual Electoral Map of 2020, despite
what trump claims, via 270towin.com

However, there are noticeable differences this time.

When 2020 happened, we were in the midst of a global COVID pandemic, which required most states to switch - or heavily promote - a mail-in ballot voting process that expanded regular voter turnout. As a result, there were massive gains compared to previous elections - 158 million total voters compared to 136 million in 2016 and 129 million in 2012 - to where we can't be certain if voter turnout will keep going up or drop back to 2016 levels now that the pandemic has shifted (to a tolerable endemic). It all depends on if the 81 million who voted for Biden (which broke the record for most popular votes for a candidate) and the 74 million who voted for trump (which also broke the previous record) decide to vote again if the mail ballot option isn't there.

Another difference has been the ongoing Republican objective of voter suppression to restrict turnout to their favor. Several battleground states that Republicans control - like Georgia and Arizona - are facing efforts to either make it harder to vote or forcing in new and partisan elections officials who will happily override results in 2024 to favor their own. States like Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were close electoral wins for 2020 Biden: If the Republicans in those states stir up chaos to undo any popular vote wins Biden could reclaim in 2024, there could well be actual 'stolen' electoral votes.

(Other close electoral win states like Michigan and Wisconsin may not be in play this time, as 2022 midterm gains by Dems will reduce the risks of electoral scamming by trump and his ilk)

These are the states at play as things stand in mid-2023.
Those three states mean the difference between
a Biden win or trump chaos.

One thing that happened post-2020 was trump's direct meddling into the election results using - abusing really - the office of the Presidency to try and force several close states to flip Biden's results and just give trump their Electoral wins. trump also staged "Fake Electors" schemes to give those state legislatures an "alternative" to the official Electors going with Biden. It's questionable - possibly unlikely - trump will be in a position to pull those same stunts again, especially as Michigan already issued criminal charges to their fake electors and Georgia (and the other states) are close to charging their fakes (nobody's gonna volunteer for possible jail time should they fail). However, it may not be trump attempting any Fake Elector stunts in 2024, it will be the Republican state legislators who saw where trump screwed up and where they could make it legal.

If there's any good news, it's that most GOP Red states expected to vote Republican (trump) in 2024 won't need to cheat (much) for the Electoral votes: Any voter suppression will only reflect in the Popular vote numbers, but it's unlikely they can suppress enough to overcome the larger voter turnout of Blue states like California, New York, and Illinois. It's only the battleground states - the Red states Biden won - that will be in play for these schemes to defraud the voters.

It then becomes a question of how Biden's administration will handle the potential cheating in those states. Any intervention by the Justice Department will get attacked by Republicans as "Biden meddling just like trump did," even if Biden doesn't call state election officials directly or threaten others with arrest the way trump and his allies really did. If Fake Electors again show up in 2024, the DOJ could find it hard to fight back, especially if a Republican-controlled House of Representatives overstep and accept Fake Electors to favor trump. It may depend on third-party voting rights groups like League of Women Voters or the Brennan Center to step up and defend the popular vote if that vote went Biden.

That is the one thing we should expect in the 2024 election results: A Popular vote win favoring Biden. In trump's previous two campaigns he never won the Popular vote, and in most respects he has done nothing to improve his position with voters who are not already part of his MAGA cult. The only way trump and the Republicans can cut into Biden's popularity - ignore the constant polling showing Biden in the low 40s pre-election: By election time those numbers tend to improve for incumbents who remain relatively popular over their opponent - is to drag Biden into the mud with scandalmongering and bad economic trends - which is why "Hunter Biden's Laptop" remains the hot topic on Fox Not-News and why House Republicans still want to nuke the federal budget so that Biden takes the blame. 

Another thing to consider is the consequences of trump's criminal misdeeds finally setting an accountability moment for the voters at large. If trump is found guilty in any of the trials he's facing in the next six-eight months, all the voters - even Republican ones - are going to have to decide if they can truly support a jury-convicted felon.

I know I've said before - a lot of others have observed it too - that Republicans WILL vote for a convicted trump, the issue becomes "how many actually will?" 

I've noted before there are factions within the ranks of the party: The die-hard MAGA true-believers who are actually reveling in trump's criminality, the cynical Republican elitists who will mock trump behind closed doors but openly support every trumpian Big Lie in order to beat back Democratic chances, and the Traditional voters who are hard-wired to vote Republican even when it's against their personal interests. Of those factions, only the MAGA voter base will obviously vote trump: There could well be a possibility that the Traditional GOP voters - the ones who grew up to Ike and Reagan and the lofty ideals of a benign conservative utopia - may recoil from a trump convicted on serious matters of espionage, obstruction, tax fraud, and/or subversion of a lawful election.

There's a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll that suggests this possibility of some Republicans refusing to vote for a convicted trump (article by Jason Lange):

About half of Republicans would not vote for Donald Trump if he were convicted of a felony, a sign of the severe risks his legal problems pose for his 2024 U.S. presidential bid, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Thursday...

The two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed before Trump's late-afternoon court appearance, asked respondents if they would vote for Trump for president next year if he were "convicted of a felony crime by a jury." Among Republicans, 45% said they would not vote for him, more than the 35% who said they would. The rest said they didn't know.

Asked if they would vote for Trump if he were "currently serving time in prison," 52% of Republicans said they would not, compared to 28% who said they would...

This is just one poll, and such things are inaccurate projection until real events prove otherwise (polling science has kinda gotten worse since 2012). The poll at least suggests in this moment enough GOP voters still respect the legal process of trial-by-jury, and understand the implications that supporting a jailed candidate reflects badly on their party and on the nation. More polls will likely follow, and differing results may occur. But it's looking like trump's boast of "shooting somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters" isn't holding up to reality.

Elections always matter, and elections rely on voter turnout. If trump is found guilty, if trump becomes the second man in American history to campaign for President from a jail cell (hi, Eugene Debs!), there is a strong chance trump's voter turnout will suffer far greater than anything that could happen to an unconvicted Joe Biden.

...which may explain, again, why House Republicans are desperate to impeach Biden five different times before 2024 rolls around.

All of this could also be moot by 2024 if trump gets convicted on some of the more serious charges, especially if those convictions trigger the 14th Amendment clause disqualifying insurrectionists from public office. That would kick trump off the general election ballots at the least - depending on the timing, it would negate any primary results - and would be great news for the Republican Also-Rans (up yours, DeSantis) vying for the Replacement gig should trump be banned. Personally, it's a result I keenly desire, because in my view trump has been and will be the worst possible human to ever run for the Presidency.

There are some who disagree with that hope, and Steve M. over at No More Mister Nice Blog does bring up a valid point:

I understand why people want to do this, but what's the likely result? It's hard to imagine Trump being pulled off the ballot in any state he could win in the general election. It's hard to imagine him being pulled off primary ballots in enough states to deny him the nomination. Meanwhile, the effort to remove him from the ballot confirms right-wingers' sense that anti-Trump forces are the real threat to democracy. That's a base motivator for the GOP.

Republicans already believe that the Trump indictments are an attempt to prevent them from voting for the candidate of their choice. Since Trump is actually a criminal, I think what's being done right now is the appropriate compromise: We're charging Trump with crimes while also allowing citizens to vote for him. They know he's facing multiple felony counts. They're making an informed choice. Let the democratic process play out...

Steve quotes that Reuters/Ipsos poll and holds out some hope:

Will nearly half of the GOP electorate really abandon Trump if he's found guilty of felonies? I'm skeptical. But this suggests that some Republican voters will.

And that could be an opportunity for the Republican Party. Even if Trump sweeps the primaries, he might seem like damaged goods to a significant segment of the GOP electorate if he's subsequently convicted of crimes. Maybe there'll be an effort to deny him the nomination, or replace him on the ballot between the convention and the general election. Who knows? A significant portion of the party's voters might approve.

Or maybe not. We'll see how GOP voters really feel once Trump has his day(s) in court and the right-wing media is portraying the proceedings as Stalinist show trials. I think most of the party will rally around him. But this poll suggests that he could lose just enough Republicans to be unelectable in November. It's probably best if the angry base isn't deprived of the opportunity to vote for him, and he loses anyway.

It's a nice sentiment, and like him I do hope enough Traditional Republican voters make the sensible move and NOT vote trump (they don't even have to vote Biden, they could even leave the Presidential choice blank while voting straight Republican down the rest of the 2024 ballot). But we've already seen trump never accepts losing - hence the 2020 schemes that has him facing criminal charges - and it's going to be a question of how far into the trumpian Big Lie madness the GOP state officials have fallen.

One other hope is if trump is convicted, and trump is still on the ballot, there's every motivation by Democratic voters (and No-Party voters leaning Center-Left) to show up in droves to ensure a goddamned felon - likely convicted for acts against the United States - gets nowhere near the White House again.

Again. Elections matter, and voter turnout win elections.

Get the vote out, Democrats. Get the vote out, Indy voters, for the Democratic Party. And for the love of GOD and COUNTRY, Republicans, stop supporting a crooked trump.

A Quick Reminder Why trump's Indictments Matter

With all the upcoming storm and fury that the trumpian criminal (and civil) cases will bring, I feel the need to re-up an earlier post I wrote about why these indictments are important and vital (and that yes I have an emotional stake in all this). If there's a way to make "Why It Matters" a permanent link on the side bar, I would do that (edit: I did):

With all this... animosity I've clearly been showing towards donald trump, I have to be honest and admit Yes I am biased, and Yes I am a little too eager to see trump perp-walked to a jail cell where he can rot for the rest of his short days.

You might want to ask me "Why." Why all this hate for the man?

It's not that he's rich (whatever millions he has doesn't make him much different from other rich men), or that he lies about being richer (although the gaslighting is part of the reason I despise trump). 

It's not that he's done anything directly towards me to raise my ire. trump's never come to my door to punch me in the face, or spike my car tires, or give a book I've published a one-star review. The closest he's done was ruining the USFL in 1987. However, taking away the Tampa Bay Bandits wasn't personal, it was just heartbreaking for myself and thousands of local sports fans.

It's not that he's a Republican political figure, although my disdain for that party has been decades long watching them sink into a Culture War miasma that's wrecking the national psyche for the last 25 years.

There are reasons to hate trump, and I listed a number of them back in 2016 regarding his unfitness to serve as President, only to watch since then every argument I made proved correct.

I would argue the reason I want to live long enough to see trump in a jail cell is the horrifying reality that this man has a long history of violating laws and cultural norms, to where he has never been held accountable for any of it. This is something which offends anyone who has a sense of justice in their soul...

Like any person with a desire to see justice done, to see our system of laws hold everyone equal to those laws, trump's ongoing misdeeds from 2017 onward triggered in me this thought: "He can't keep getting away with it..."

At some point, an honest defense of our nation's Constitutional system has to acknowledge the damage trump has done, is still inflicting, on the United States' well-being.

Which is why it matters. It matters to me, it matters to millions of fellow Americans, it matters to our future that all the things trump is under criminal investigation for today - the January 6th Insurrection, his tax fraud scams, that unfinished bribery allegation, his theft of classified documents, and the election interference in Georgia and other states - must finally bring him to heel.

It is a moral imperative as much as a legal imperative that at some point - for any of the crimes trump's committed in his pursuit of greed and power - donald trump must be indicted. It's not schadenfreude, it's not envy, it's not partisan hackery, it's not foolishness on my part or anyone else's. 

It is a straight-up moral imperative that trump stand in an American court of law and be held accountable for the laws he's openly violated. It is a moral imperative that every excuse, every deflection, every lie that trump keeps uttering to avoid the facts all come to an end.

Gods help us. Let Justice Be Done.

Will There Ever Be a Reckoning for What trump Did?

As donald trump gets marched into yet another courthouse today to get arraigned for criminal charges, that question remains at the fore. While trump is getting charged, and is facing his day in front of a judge and jury, will trump face any consequence for the sins he's committed?

There remains the actual matter of how the trials will end. trump is unlikely to plead to anything - his own narcissism and belief of being "above the law, they let you do it" will stop him from ever accepting guilt on even a misdemeanor deal - so it's going to determine if a jury finds him innocent or guilty on any of these matters.

Criminal cases are different from the civil cases trump has faced - and recently lost - before. The burden of proof on the state is higher, and the jury needs to be unanimous on all guilty verdicts. Meaning trump can pray for at least one die-hard conservative who survived voir dire process to nullify everything into a mistrial, which trump would crow as vindication and delay matters until after the November 2024 elections.

On the other hand, prosecutors have to have a strong case going into these matters in the first place, meaning Special Counsel Jack Smith has enough evidence to sway even a MAGA jury into realizing how badly the laws were broken. Considering the track record the Justice Department's had against the January 6th rioters so far - few acquittals and plenty of plea deals - they know how to present this kind of case to a jury to secure a conviction on at least ONE of the charges. trump's never faced anything this serious before, and is going up against prosecutors who know how trump is going to try to defend himself and will be prepped to outflank him.

What's also at stake here is the nation as a whole. We're entering literally uncharted waters now. We've never had a former President - the highest office in the land - face criminal charges of any kind post-admin. At most we've dealt with corrupt congresscritters going to jail for bribery and other unethical acts, we had to deal with the Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis for their insurrection of Civil War (which led to the 14th Amendment provision blocking their like from any further office). This is new, and uncomfortably close for a lot of pundits towards crossing a line into partisanship.

In previous matters where a corrupt official found themselves cast adrift by their political party when caught in the act (Hi, Richard Nixon!), for trump almost the entire Republican Party has rallied to his defense. The nature of partisanship has gotten so severe that the modern GOP cannot cut themselves free of trump, and are tying his fate to theirs.

That also has a lot of the punditry worried, especially at the Atlantic (paywalled, by the by) that I still quote from often (blame TNC). Let's start with Ronald Brownstein:

The germ of election denialism that Trump injected into the American political system has spread so far throughout the Republican Party that it is virtually certain to survive whatever legal accountability the former president faces.

With polls showing that most Republican voters still believe the election was stolen from Trump, that the January 6 riot was legitimate protest, and that Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 results did not violate the law or threaten the constitutional system, the United States faces a stark and unprecedented situation. For the first time in the nation’s modern history, the dominant faction in one of our two major parties has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to accept antidemocratic means to advance its interests...

Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian who specializes in American politics, told me that U.S. history has no exact precedent for a party embracing a leader so openly hostile to the core pillars of democracy. Presidents have often been accused of violating the Constitution through their policy actions, he said, but there is not another example of a president moving as systematically to “manipulate the apparatus of government or elections in order to subvert the will of the people.”

The closest parallel to Trump’s actions, Wilentz said, may be the strategies of the slaveholding South in the decades before the Civil War. Those included violent attacks on abolitionists, suppression of antislavery publications, and the promulgation of extreme legal theories such as the denial of basic rights to Black people in the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, all of which were designed to protect slavery against the emerging national majority dubious of it. That decades-long “antidemocratic thrust” from the South, Wilentz noted, “finally culminated in the greatest violation of the American Constitution in our history, which was secession.”

And Adam Serwer notes the GOP voting base - and thus the GOP officials pandering to that base - is still with trump:

If you’re wondering how Trump has survived as a candidate for office, you can look squarely at the conservative elites in politics and media—including many people who would prefer to be rid of him—who have staked out the position that trying to overthrow the government is not illegal if a Republican does it. Those defending Trump after his indictment over his attempted autogolpe are not opposing the politicization of justice; they are demanding it...

The hard-core authoritarian right that has risen in Trump’s shadow, the one contemplating political purges, noncompetitive elections, and iron-fisted state repression of its political opposition, has no commitment to democracy as an ideal, and its continued support is no mystery. The group is small in number, even if a committed political vanguard can have influence beyond its numbers, especially given its growing acceptance in mainstream-Republican circles.

The majority of conservative elites, however, retains some philosophical commitment to democracy and self-governance. They have nevertheless repeatedly failed the most basic test of democratic citizenship posed to them, defending the right of their public to choose their leaders. Right-wing media knowingly encouraged the delusions of the conservative base that the election was stolen out of fear that their audiences would flee. Republican lawmakers, now including Trump’s own primary opponents, have validated the idea that Trump is a victim of political persecution rather than someone who engaged in a conspiracy to keep himself in power, because they fear the electoral cost of opposing him. Immobilized by their own cowardice, both groups remain indefinitely in his thrall.

It is that blind devotion to an obviously corrupt figure like trump that is sounding five-alarm bells. Quoting from Tom Nichols about the danger trump represents now:

Long before now, however, Americans should have reached the conclusion, with or without a trial, that Trump is a menace to the United States and poisonous to our society...  The GOP base, controlled by Trump’s cult of personality, will likely never admit its mistake: As my colleague Peter Wehner writes, Trump’s record of “lawlessness and depravity” means nothing to Republicans. But other Republicans now, more than ever, face a moment of truth. They must decide if they are partisans or patriots. They can no longer claim to be both.

The rest of us, as a nation but also as individuals, can no longer indulge the pretense that Trump is just another Republican candidate, that supporting Donald Trump is just another political choice, and that agreeing with Trump’s attacks on our democracy is just a difference of opinion... I have long described Trump’s candidacies as moral choices and tests of civic character, but I have also cautioned that Americans, for the sake of social comity, should resist too many arguments about politics among themselves. I can no longer defend this advice...

This is painful advice to give and to follow. No one, including me, wants to lose friends or chill valued relationships over so small a man as Trump. But our democracy is about to go into legal and electoral battle for its own survival. If we don’t speak up—to one another, as well as to the media and to our elected officials—and Trump defeats us all by regaining power and making a mockery of American democracy, then we’ll all have lost a lot more than a few friendships. We face in Trump a dedicated enemy of our Constitution, and if he returns to office, his next “administration” will be a gang of felons, goons, and resentful mediocrities, all of whom will gladly serve Trump’s sociopathic needs while greedily dividing the spoils of power.

This is the real danger we're facing: The likelihood of donald trump getting criminally convicted by a jury and still eke-ing out a win - thanks to a still-broken Electoral College system and likely Republican voter suppression - for the Presidency in 2024 that would negate any prison time for himself (and then mass pardons for all of his lackeys to join him in the White House to commit more crimes).

Remember, there's only these restrictions - must be 35 years or older, must be a natural-born citizen, must have lived in the United States for 14 years - on running for President. There's no law blocking a convicted criminal running for that office, only the moral and ethical limits of any party willing to back him. Eugene Debs, after all, ran for President from his jail cell in 1920 and garnered about 1 million votes. Thing was, Debs was a fringe candidate for a fringe party and that was 3 percent of the total. This time it's different: trump will be representing one of the two major parties able to rally at least 62 million and at most 74 million to trump's banner. Even with trump sitting in a jail cell come November 2024, Republicans will vote for a convicted trump.

This is the fear: That trump and his Republican followers will never face a true reckoning for the damage they've done to our nation, and threaten to inflict even more.

This is where the ones who can stop that - the 81 million voters who sided with Joe Biden in 2020, the Democratic voters, the No-Party independents - need to stand up, now and in 2024. We need to keep fighting for our right to vote even as the Republican-controlled states try to purge the rolls and rig the results. We need to show up - even more than 81 million strong - to ensure there is no chance the likes of a corrupt trump and a corrupt GOP seizing the Presidency.

Because they're - not just trump - openly promising to make sure they never lose that power again.

For the LOVE OF GOD, America, stop voting for a corrupt Republican Party and their crooked banner carrier donald trump.

Third trump Indictment the Charm, And Still More To Come

Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
-- Matthew 7:7 

Well, I demanded indictments and BY GOD Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered with regards to trump's involvement in the January 6th Insurrection. Via Dareh Gregorian and Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News:

Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges he conspired to defraud the country he used to lead and attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden. 

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified,” the indictment from special counsel Jack Smith’s office says. 

The indictment marks a historic moment for a nation less than 250 years old — the first time a former president has faced criminal charges for trying to overturn the bedrock of democracy, a free and fair election. While Trump's failure to reverse his defeat was a credit to the guardrails of that democracy, the ability to prosecute him may renew the stress test on the constitutional design.

The allegation that Trump used "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit" to subvert the 2020 election with "pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud" comes after a sprawling investigation that included testimony from dozens of White House aides and advisors ranging in seniority up to former Vice President Mike Pence.

The indictment accuses Trump of taking part in three criminal conspiracies: "to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit" to obstruct the electoral vote process; to "impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified;" and "against the right to vote and to have that vote counted."

There is a link to the indictments provided here.

I would like to refer to Emptywheel for her legal expertise, but she's only posted a quick review and promises to have more later (and gives us clues as to who the yet-indicted co-conspirators are):

It’s late here, so this may be my only analysis before you all wake up.

But I wanted to lay out the structure of the Trump indictment.

The indictment charges him, alone, with four crimes:

18 USC 371 (conspiracy to defraud the US)

18 USC  1512(k) (conspiracy to obstruct the vote certification)

18 USC 1512(c)(2) (obstructing the vote certification)

18 USC 241 (conspiracy to violate civil rights)

They all are entirely overlapping. That is, Trump’s conduct, and those of 6 alleged co-conspirators, is cited in all those charges.

These are four charges for the same crime. So if the DC Circuit or SCOTUS overturns how DOJ has applied 1512, there are two back stops.

The other most important part of this indictment is who is named as a co-conspirator (and who might well be charged, as far as we know, today, separately by sealed indictment):

• Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not. (Rudy Giuliani)
• Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devise and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election. (John Eastman)
• Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Nevertheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation. (Sidney Powell)
• Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. (Jeffrey Clark)
• Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. (WaPo says this is Kenneth Chesebro, and I think that’s sound.)
• Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. (Note: Emptywheel doesn't speculate but others are thinking it's Boris Epshteyn)

I argued since April 2022 that DOJ could — and should — charge Trump first and build in the stuff around him. I reiterated that a few weeks ago.

There’s a lot here...

One thing I would note is how Jack Smith spelled out more indictments are coming, not just for the conspirators but that trump is still on the hook for other matters the grand jury haven't voted on yet. For example, there's charges related to the Fake Electors scheme that Conspirator Number 6 oversaw that haven't been directly indicted yet (possibly waiting for Georgia's indictments on their Fake Electors to set up the charges for that state and several others).

Why these charges matter is that Smith presents as a legal matter before the courts strong evidence that donald trump has been - still is - lying about the 2020 election results, and using those lies to conspire against the Constitution and the United States and the People it represents.

Throughout the indictments, time and again Smith and his team point out where trump had been told the election results were fair, there was no proof of stolen or faked ballots, and yet trump still schemed to undo those results. Worse, trump and his co-conspirators were planning out ways to disrupt the formalities of our electoral system through means of violence: First towards trump's own Vice President Pence and towards Congress, and then violence towards any Americans who would rise up in protest against trump's coup attempt.

For all of trump's screaming that these indictments are a "WITCH HUNT", for the love of God the whole world witnessed what happened on January 6th when trump's rally turned into a riot that smashed into the halls of the Capitol. There's been hundreds of court cases that convicted - or forced plea deals - almost half of the trumpian MAGA rioters by now. There's been two-plus years of Congressional hearings and grand jury inquiries into trump's misconduct that presented enough evidence that the Justice Department can now take to trial.

We've seen real witch hunts, by the by: Far Right Republican pursuits after Bill Clinton in the 1990s that only uncovered adulterous affairs that had nothing to do with financial or political crimes; Far Right Republican allegations against Obama for everything they feared but could never prove; Far Right Republican attacks on Hillary's handling of Benghazi and her emails, which all turned into nothingburgers that could never stand up in a court of law.

We've never been in a moment like this, with a former President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) facing criminal charges for attacking constitutional norms and in most respects the nation itself. All because we've never had as blatant a con artist and would-be mafia boss like trump reach that level of power before.

Gods help us, our nation needs this moment to force trump into the crucible of a courtroom, to face the reality of the schemes he's plotted and the sins he's committed. Anything to stop him from his constant Big Lies that have brought us to this place. Anything to stop him before he can lie and bully his way back into the Presidency where the law will be impotent to hold him accountable (ever again, if he gets his wish of dismantling every federal system to stay in power for the rest of his aging life).

Let Justice be done. For everything that the United States represents in the long arc of human history.