A Dark Memorial Blotting Out the Miami Skyline

I once wrote back at the end of trump's first turn at destroying America about how even as a failed president occupant of the White House he was entitled to a library in his dishonor. Even then, I dismissed the prospect because of several points (some of which proved prophetic):

Another thing to consider is the overall mess trump's administration has been. Archivists, historians, and other observers have been complaining about the lack of effective record-keeping in his offices. A combination of understaffing and unqualified hires contributed to a disorganized management system. When you consider the possibility of half the things trump and his cohorts did in the White House - the way they broke the immigration policies and committed potential human rights abuses towards children, for God's sake - we're facing the possibility that half the documentation for trump's would-be library will be missing, destroyed, or redacted into solid pages of black lines...

As a Presidential Museum, of course, it would make perfect sense. The museum won't need to answer to the demands of history or accuracy: the trump Museum would be a grand display of trump's narcissism. Every nook, room, and hallway filled with garish, gaudy tributes to trump's "greatness". A performance hall with a stage dedicated to any speaker offering praise and holiest-of-thous to a con artist, an assembly dedicated to the greed and graft of a corrupt overlord.

It's why I don't see a future trump Library as being anything more than an oversized gift store: Balanced between a Far Right bookstore selling trump ghost-written hagiographies at 100 bucks a cover, and a South Florida tourist trap shilling MAGA beach towels and trump-signed golf clubs...

With trump's return to office, the prospect of his Library getting done became more likely, and with trump basically claiming Florida as his place of power it was unavoidable that my home state is absorbing the potential damage of hosting it (via Kate Payne at AP News): 

A judge in Miami has dismissed a complaint challenging a college’s decision to gift prime downtown real estate for President Donald Trump’s future presidential library, clearing the way for the real estate developer-turned-president to build a towering monument to his political rise in an iconic stretch of the city.

A local activist brought the lawsuit against Miami Dade College, arguing the school’s board didn’t give sufficient public notice and violated the state’s open government law when board members voted in September to give away the nearly 3-acre (1.2-hectare) property in downtown Miami.

The site is a developer’s dream and is valued at more than $67 million, according to a 2025 assessment by the Miami-Dade County property appraiser. One real estate expert wagered that the parcel — one of the last undeveloped lots on a palm tree-lined stretch of Biscayne Boulevard — could sell for hundreds of millions of dollars more...

After the college first voted in September to transfer the property to a fund controlled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, the GOP officials voted to transfer the land again, effectively putting the property under the control of the Trump family when they deeded it to the foundation for Trump’s library. That foundation is led by three trustees: Eric Trump; Tiffany Trump’s husband, Michael Boulos; and the president’s attorney, James Kiley.

Eric Trump has pledged the future library will be “one of the most beautiful buildings ever built” and “an Icon on the Miami skyline.” Under local zoning rules, the best use of the property would be a towering condo building, according to one Miami real estate expert, who described the site as a potential “cash cow.”

That the local developers are picturing the library to be more of a condo seems apt considering how trump and his family view property as money machines for their own pockets. /sigh

As for Eric trump's promise to make the library "one of the most beautiful buildings ever built," you have to remember that the trump ideal of "beauty" is oversized crassness, and this week's preliminary reveal of what they want the library to be wasn't that shocking (horrifying, yes, but not shocking). As Cameron Adams at the Daily Beast documents:

President Donald Trump has shared the first images of his latest vanity building—a book-free library that includes a tacky golden statue of himself and shiny gold escalators.

The first look at the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, to be constructed in Miami, Florida, suggests the building will be firmly on brand for the 79-year-old. It is a mammoth skyscraper with ‘TRUMP’ emblazoned near the top and images of the American flag.

"Book free". Yeah. /Librarian headdesking

An apparently AI-generated video shows multiple aircraft housed inside the library, as well as what appear to be replicas of the White House’s Oval Office and the president’s yet-to-be-built ballroom, as well as a huge gold statue of Trump in what looks like an auditorium.

Linked from the Daily Beast article.

"ALL HAIL THE GOLDEN IDOL! ALL HAIL trump! HAIL! HAIL!"

The president’s son Eric breathlessly posted that he had “poured my heart and soul” into the project over the past six months.

“This landmark on the water in Miami, Florida will stand as a lasting testament to an amazing man, an amazing developer, and the greatest President our Nation has ever known,” he said on X... 

There's an AI-generated video - which just adds to the tackiness of the presentation - to which I don't want to link. I will share a few more pictures at least.

All images linked from the Daily Beast.

It's all just one big placard for trump's name and likeness, isn't it?

Also note how high this skyscraper is going: it's planned to be the tallest building in Miami, which is already a flat landscape due to Florida's geography. You couldn't avoid it even from the safe distance of Broward County, I'd wager.

I'd also wonder about the all-glass exterior, which can be common among Florida skyscrapers but not at that height, and not at the expense of whichever Category 5 hurricane decides to hit the place.

One more thing I just remembered: Can the ground support the weight of such a structure? It's not the bedrock of Manhattan Island, and South Florida runs the risk of collapsing buildings in this day and age.

One last thing to remember is how trump and his kids are grifters of the lowest order: Anything that can make them money while they produce little to no results. Early "fundraising" shakedowns have raised concerns:

This month, congressional Democrats including Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal wrote to ABC, Meta, Paramount, and X requesting details about the money they pledged to Trump’s library project as part of their legal settlements, The Washington Post reported.

“Now it is unclear where this money has gone, exacerbating concerns about corruption that were apparent at the time of the settlement,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund was originally set up to manage the money, but was dissolved last year.

A second nonprofit fund, called the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc., was then established. The fund reported in December 2025 that it had received $50 million, though it did not confirm whether that sum includes the legal settlement funds...

There's no guarantee that trump's fundraising is actually going into this tower of triteness. I wouldn't trust anyone in this project with doing any fundraising to build a parking garage in Miami, which would be of greater value than this blight.

All this seems to me is - yet again - trump eager to build an oversized, underused monument to his own decaying corrupt ego, one that will likely get torn down the second he's out of power because nobody else really needs it.

Biden's Farewell

Update 1/20/25: Thanks again to Steve in Manhattan for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! I know today is going to be a dark and stressful one, so my suggestion to survive this day is 1) don't fcking watch and 2) hug your pets/loved ones. Good luck. We're all counting on you.

As most outgoing Presidents are wont to do - since Washington set the tone - President Joe Biden issued a formal Farewell Address to the nation, pointing out his term's successes and making dire warnings about what lays ahead (via Chris Megerian, Zeke Miller, and Colleen Long at AP News):

President Joe Biden used his farewell address to the nation Wednesday to deliver stark warnings about an “oligarchy” of the ultra-wealthy taking root in the country and a “tech-industrial complex” that is infringing on Americans’ rights and the future of democracy.

Speaking from the Oval Office as he prepares to hand over power Monday to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden seized what is likely to be his final opportunity to address the country before he departs the White House to spotlight the accumulation of power and wealth in the U.S. among just a small few.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said, drawing attention to “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked...”

Biden’s speech in the Oval Office is the latest in a series of remarks on domestic policy and foreign relations he has delivered that are intended to cement his legacy and reshape Americans’ grim views on his term. Earlier in the day, he heralded a long awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which could end more than a year of bloodshed in the Middle East.

“It’ll take time to feel the full impact of what we’ve done together but the seeds are planted and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come,” Biden said. It was a tacit acknowledgement that many Americans say they have yet to feel the impact of his trillions of dollars spent on domestic initiatives...

Biden offered his own set of solutions for the problems that he laid out: change the tax code to ensure billionaires “pay their fair share,” eliminate the flow of hidden sources of money into political campaigns, establish 18-year term limits for members of the Supreme Court and ban members of Congress from trading stocks. His policy prescriptions come as his political capital is at its nadir as Biden prepares to exit the national stage, and after he has done little to advance those causes during his four years in power at the White House...

That last sentence aptly defines what could prove to be Biden's legacy: Both the long-term accomplishments he focused on working to rebuild the economy post-COVID and post-trump, and the frustration at letting too many needed reforms go pass. ALL of those things that Biden offered as solutions - especially the needed caps on campaign financing and on judicial overreach and corruption - were things HIS OWN administration could have worked on during the brief window of opportunity 2021 to 2023 when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

To this, I would point to Professor James David Barber's cheat sheet of Presidential Character. Where Biden falls on that spectrum - Passive-Positive - explains a lot about the lack of energy or focus when working on extensive and radical reforms. Passives are the type that don't want to "rock the boat" too hard and shake off any support from the more extreme elements of their own coalitions (and are willing to work with opponents thinking everyone's all in one big happy Starfleet); while the Positive trait of seeing the powers of high office as a good thing for the public can blind such Presidents from the need to stop corruption in government. Such Congeniality wouldn't be a problem in times of normalcy: However, we are in the Age of trump, where lies and greed are the coins of the realm, and Biden exposed himself to attacks he couldn't overcome.

This is why Passive-Positives preside over either administrations of high corruption or low energy. The good news is that Biden's personal incorruptibility - in spite of the MAGA accusations that he's corrupt like his son Hunter - drove him to surround himself with good people who did their jobs. This keeps him from getting grouped with the likes of U.S. Grant (who failed to surround himself with good people) and Warren Harding (who happily surrounded himself with corrupt friends) and Ronald Reagan (who may not have been fully aware of his regime's corruption but allowed it to happen). Biden falls in with the likes of William Taft: Who rose to power during a Progressive reformist wave and served a relatively scandal-free term, but failed to capitalize on more economic reforms and corporate regulations that were needed in that era.

As a side note, this is where Barber's Character chart of creating four major traits falls apart in the specific successes and failures of each presidency. Not all Active-Positive Presidents behave the same way, nor do Passive-Positives or Active-Negatives (there have been too few Passive-Negatives to make that observation). Even within each Character there seems to be two types: With Passive-Positives there's the type that presides over corruption because they don't want to lose friends (Appeasers) or the type that doesn't want to push harder on things that need doing (Slackers) because they feared the risks (something Actives never worry about).

Biden ended up as a Slacker President, trying to focus on big-menu items like job growth and infrastructure but unwilling to press harder on major crises such as trump's lawlessness and foreign wars/interventions such as Ukraine (where Biden's fear of Putin's nuclear retaliation paralyzed our support efforts to Zelensky) and Gaza (even as Biden claims success with a ceasefire, it took too many months and too many innocent Palestinian lives to get here).

Because of Biden's inability to see trump as a genuine and ongoing threat to American democracy and political well-being - and because he feared falling into the accusations of dictatorship if they pursued trump's criminality - he didn't push too hard - and hired a like-minded Attorney General in Merrick Garland who also didn't press the need - to see trump held accountable for his actions on January 6th. That delay cost us dearly: It allowed trump to campaign again and use his gaslighting and denials to escape justice, and return to power with a vengeance (literally).

Biden's administration is going to be less remembered for the accomplishments he did achieve - especially a key infrastructure bill that should improve local manufacturing and job growth for the next 20 years - and more remembered for all the missed opportunities to end global threats like Putin and greedhead threats like Elon Musk. He'll be among the ranks of the recently passed Jimmy Carter: A Good man who didn't exactly do a Great job.

The Passing of a Good Man

His health had been failing for a long time, he'd been in hospice, and his wife Rosalynn had passed away earlier so there wasn't much else for former President Jimmy Carter to hold onto. It still hurts to hear this afternoon that Carter passed away (via Kathy Lohr at NPR): 

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, died Sunday at age 100. The Carter Center announced he died in his hometown of Plains, Ga.

Carter was president from 1977 to 1981, but he was perhaps more famous for the life he led after leaving office. Carter was one of the biggest advocates for peace, democracy and international human rights.

James "Jimmy" Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Ga., on Oct. 1, 1924, and spent his childhood on a farm just outside that tiny southwest Georgia community. His father was a peanut farmer; his mother, "Miss Lillian," was a nurse. He was the first president of the United States to be born in a hospital.

Just saying, my twin brother and I were born in Albany, GA just down the road from Plains. We both grew up considering Jimmy as a neighbor. I digress.

Growing up on the farm, Carter learned the value of hard work and determination. He qualified for the U.S. Naval Academy and became an engineer, working on submarines. But Carter resigned from the Navy in 1953 after his father died.

Back in Plains, he was elected to the Georgia Senate and became the first Georgia governor to speak out against racial discrimination.

A lifelong Democrat like most Southerners at the time, Carter was a political unknown when he began a national campaign in 1974 and was first referred to as "Jimmy Who?"

But a grassroots effort changed that, Hochman said. "He would campaign on the street corners and go to radio stations. Nobody knew who he was except that he was running for president."

Carter's friends and family from Georgia, called the Peanut Brigade, traveled to New Hampshire, Iowa and all over the country talking to voters and campaigning for Carter, the dependable Southerner who wanted to be president.

During the campaign, Carter told audiences, "I'll never tell a lie. I'll never make a misleading statement. I'll never betray the trust of those who have confidence in me, and I will never avoid a controversial issue..."

Carter won in a close election over Gerald Ford in 1976, happening at a moment where the national mood soured over Watergate, the failure of the Vietnam War, and an economy struggling between high inflation or bad interest rates. Carter's own administration grappled with the economic (and spiritual) malaise that worsened his chances at re-election, before getting blindsided by the Iranian Hostage crisis by 1979 that dashed any incumbent hopes for good.

What happened post-Presidency with Jimmy Carter was one of the greatest humanitarian efforts that Americans ever saw:

After leaving office, Carter became dedicated to promoting democracy, monitoring elections, building homes with Habitat for Humanity and eradicating disease in some of the world's poorest countries. In 1982, the president and his wife opened the Carter Center in Atlanta.

In an interview with NPR in 2007, Carter talked about his experiences. "And for the last 25 years, my life could not have been more expansive and unpredictable and adventurous and gratifying," he said.

In 2002, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor some said he had earned a quarter century earlier when he negotiated the Camp David Accords. He ended his acceptance speech with a plea for peace.

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children," Carter said...

When I did the year-long summaries of Presidential Character back in 2013, I ended Carter's review rather abruptly without going into the graceful post-Presidential work he committed. I wasn't too sure back then how to properly phrase the many good deeds - the work towards world peace, moderating elections at home and abroad to promote democracy, building homes for families with Habitat For Humanity, fighting disease in Africa like the near-eradication of Guinea Worm - and I was kind of worried even back then if I said anything positive like that I might jinx him to an early death (his health had been failing for some time. Getting into your 90s will do that to you).

The thing about Carter was how genuine were his efforts to do the right thing. He fought against segregation in a Deep South state, he committed to advocacy for human rights over power plays on the international stage, he promoted his Christian faith through good works instead of beating everyone's head with a thick Bible.

Carter never once promoted himself at the expense of other people. He never worked to take millions of dollars for himself, giving instead to his charities. He never crowed about his successes unless it was to celebrate and honor the hundreds if not thousands of fellow volunteers and allies who worked with him.

If there was any person on the planet in the exact opposite of the - you know what, shouldn't even name-drop that orange guy here - it was President Carter.

God Bless the man, who served his post-Presidency in ways that other former Presidents would envy: with hard work, diligence, respect from others, and the love of a grateful nation.

I want to leave you all with a clip from Saturday Night, back in the days of Carter's tenure, with Dan Ackroyd portraying him. This may not have been the real Jimmy Carter but it honestly reflects the man himself: caring for others, well-versed and intelligent, and a huge Allman Brothers fan:

“Right, you did some Orange Sunshine, Peter. Everything is going to be fine, you’re just very high and you’ll probably be that way for about five more hours. Try taking some Vitamin B or C complex. If you have a beer, go ahead and drink it. Just remember, you’re a living organism on this planet, you’re safe, you’ve just taken a heavy drug. Relax, stay inside, and listen to some music. Do you have any Allman Brothers?”

All flags to half-mast, America, for the passing of a not-too-great President and the best ex-President we will ever know.

No Punishment to Which trump Can Be Subjected By a Wingnut SCOTUS

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a National revolution...
-- The Federalist 68, by Alexander Hamilton 

I really hate being in this darkest timeline. 

As I dreaded earlier, this Far Right controlled Supreme Court ruled on donald trump's plea for legal immunity to save him from the federal charges he is - maybe was now - facing over the stolen classified documents at Mar-A-Lago and his role in the January 6th Insurrection. They basically gave him everything trump asked for and destroyed any pretense at accountability in the process (via Amy Howe at SCOTUSBlog):

In a historic decision, a divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.

The decision left open the possibility that the charges brought against former President Donald Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith – alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election – can still go forward to the extent that the charges are based on his private conduct, rather than his official acts.

The case now returns to the lower courts for them to determine whether the conduct at the center of the charges against Trump was official or unofficial – an inquiry that, even if it leads to the conclusion that the charges can proceed, will almost certainly further delay any trial in the case, which had originally been scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024 but is currently on hold.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the president “is not above the law.” But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, countered that if a future president “misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop...”

Sotomayor is rightly pointing out that a corrupt President will ignore the meaningless assurances Roberts is offering, because that corrupt SOB will figure out how to drag everything under that "official acts" umbrella and nobody - not even future Courts - will be able to argue otherwise.

This ruling goes against what was considered settled law with Nixon v United States, which stated clearly "no one is above the law." This Roberts Court is now saying that a sitting President is above the law, and can inflict acts of retribution and cruelty on everyone else.

This is the power of kings: To rule with impunity and injustice. This is something our nation's Founders fought against. We're due to celebrate the holiday honoring their Declaration against the tyranny of a British king, and these wingnut Justices just undid everything the Founders stood for.

When they created the Executive branch, when they settled on a President of the United States, the Founders insisted on establishing checks and balances to ensure political power never rested with a tyrant. By creating the idea of even limited immunity related to the "duties of the office", this Court just upended those balances, ended those checks.

A crooked man in the White House - someone like trump - can now do anything he wants.

Consider what trump wants to do in a second term in office should he lie, bully, and steal his way back into the Presidency. he's openly planning revenge against the New York officers and judges who held him accountable for his acts of fraud and sexual assault. trump and his anti-immigrant handlers are drawing up plans to seize up to 20 million people they'll claim are illegal immigrants and hold them in "camps" (note: there aren't that many illegals in America. They'll likely be seizing real citizens - mostly kids unable to produce ID - and making them suffer) in clear violation of civil rights. And he's planning to gut the Executive branch of civil service employees in violation of workers rights and the needs of the public. 

We are now facing the serious threat of an uncontrolled donald trump sitting in the Oval Office with a literal license to kill.

The entire nation needs to recognize the threat donald trump and his Far Right Republican allies represent. No one is going to be safe if he gets back in the White House.

To the 81 million Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, you need to come back to the ballot box and support him - as Biden respects the rule of law and denounced today's ruling - again. To every Independent voter out there, you need to pick a side now and vote for the Democrats who won't subvert the Constitution and its protections we've lived with our whole lives. To any Republican voters who still respect the rule of law and understand how dangerous trump is, you need to get over any hesitancy to vote Democrat and for the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY vote Biden.

The entire nation as we know it is now at the edge of the cliff. trump and his cronies are eager to drive us over that edge.

Time to stand up. Time to vote. Time to deny these corrupt trumpian powers any dominion over us.

Dreading a Decision

With the Supreme Court winding down for the summer, there are still a number of key legal decisions they have to issue. The big one being the decision on donald trump's claims of Absolute Immunity from facing criminal prosecution for acts he committed while President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice).

The Far Right on the Court have already done trump a solid favor by taking up this matter, forcing delays on two of the federal cases trump is facing: One for his mishandling/theft of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago; the other related to his actions - and inactions - during the January 6th Insurrection. Even if the Court comes out with a ruling that says trump still has to stand trial on those charges, the likelihood is that both won't finish - or even start - before the general election this November. While the 34 guilty verdicts trump received in New York court already paints trump as a felon, these federal cases directly focused on trump's unfitness as President, and could have convinced a larger majority of American voters to deny him a second - more corrupt - term.

For all of how this affects the electoral matters, there is still a serious danger regarding the Supreme Court's pending decision on this.

One of the worst possible outcomes would be if a simple majority - five of the Republican-appointed conservatives - approved trump's stance of having Absolute Immunity. It would immediately destroy any check and balance within the Constitution: the Executive branch will become untouchable to the Judicial and Legislative branch. It would give Presidents full power to be tyrants. And it would be insane even for Justices like Alito and Thomas - who've openly supported such Unitary Executive arguments for years - to approve that.

The only thing stopping such a ruling is that it would immediately grant the current President - Democratic Joe Biden - the same immunity, which he could then abuse to his own devices. Considering real-world issues - such as Russian interference supporting a corrupt felon like trump this election cycle, Far Right obstructionism in Congress, and a Supreme Court dominated by unethical Republican-nominated Justices (hello again, Clarence Thomas) - Biden could well argue the need for his administration to cross legal boundaries to perform his duties, and arrest every single one of them without regard to legal niceties. Granted, it would trigger secession from the Red states and open civil war, but an Absolutely Immune President like Biden could ignore things like Posse Comitatus and send a mostly-loyal federal military to overwhelm them all. I doubt the Far Right judges will risk that.

Which could lead to an even worse possibility: The conservative Justices decide to carve out Absolute Immunity but in such a way it covers trump and no one else. Trying to make sure Biden or any future President - unless it's trump again (shudder) - won't use such powers to disrupt or upend any Far Right hold on American politics, those Justices could twist the entire legal system into knots granting an individual certain powers they would deny to others in the same position. Such a ruling would make a mockery of centuries of legal history; ignoring the practice of following and creating precedence, or the idea that persons are equal before the law.

That result would undermine the already crumbling reputation of a partisan Supreme Court. Legal experts who aren't already pandering to trump would cry foul. There would be the likelihood that Biden's Attorney General would argue that ruling "unenforceable" and ignore it, creating a massive crisis dragging in a divided Congress that would have House Republicans impeaching AG Garland and President Biden while the Senate Democrats refuse to vote on the matter. It could still lead to Biden claiming such powers of immunity anyway, since any constitutional norms are clearly out the window.

A more likely scenario is that the Far Right Justices would carve out Selective - not Absolute - immunity, granting that trump while in office was able to perform certain criminal acts "if it fell within the scope of his duties." They would try to align such "criminal acts" to the ones trump is facing charges - a tidy little coincidence - so that Biden and future Presidents can't unleash themselves. But it staggers the mind that the Justices would grant immunity over such high-priority matters as refusing to send in help to subdue a violent riot incited by a President - like in January 6th - or trying to take all those classified documents - like in the Mar-A-Lago matter - that are clear violations of that President's duties.

The best possible decision would be for a majority of the Justices - the Democratic-appointed ones alongside at least two Republican ones - to agree a President doesn't have Absolute Immunity. They could stick to the precedence set by US v Nixon that "no one is above the law" and that Presidents should consider their criminal liability for acts they commit even while in office. It would mean trump is exposed to whatever fate he faces with the federal criminal trials... depending on if the South Florida judge Aileen Cannon will stop her own screw-ups in the Mar-A-Lago case.

In this timeline, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith could arguably speed up the DC trial regarding trump's involvement in January 6th and get that trial going as soon as possible (maybe late July). The classified documents one will clearly not be ready this year, and the Fulton County matter has been delayed until October, so the DC case would be in the clear. Thing is, most legal experts argue that the amount of evidence and witness testimony could take months, making it unlikely the trial would end before November.

That all said, the Far Right Supreme Court could make a ruling not to decide. They could delay the whole argument by sending the matter back down and demanding "clarification" from the lower courts which Presidential acts could be protected by immunity and which shouldn't. That would definitely freeze up the DC trial for now, and put everything on hold until the Court reopens for business in October.

Waiting for justice from this broken Supreme Court has turned into a joke.

It's been clear for some time that the legal system is not going to save us from a corrupt trump or a sadistic self-serving Republican Party. We're going to have to do it at the ballot box.

In spite of all the threats from the Republicans that they're going to suppress the votes, they can't stop or deny us all. If we can get the 81 million who voted for Biden in 2020 - and if we can get the Independent voters and Rational Republicans who refuse to vote for a convicted felon like trump - we can overcome the GOP's plan to steal this election.

Get the vote out, America. Only WE can stop trump from committing more crimes.

The Threat of trump's Atrocities

Update 5/1/24 - Thanks again as always to Batocchio for including this article in Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please take the time to visit the rest of the blog, and get the vote out for Biden this 2024!

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
-- Voltaire

Well, the Supreme Court finally heard donald trump's legal arguments for getting ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY for all the criming he did as President; including taking classified documents in violation of the Presidential Records Act, and his involvement in the January 6th Insurrection. 

It didn't go well (via Adam Serwer at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.

“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted...”

The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law...

Trump’s legal argument is a path to dictatorship. That is not an exaggeration: His legal theory is that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for official acts. Under this theory, a sitting president could violate the law with impunity, whether that is serving unlimited terms or assassinating any potential political opponents, unless the Senate impeaches and convicts the president. Yet a legislature would be strongly disinclined to impeach, much less convict, a president who could murder all of them with total immunity because he did so as an official act. The same scenario applies to the Supreme Court, which would probably not rule against a chief executive who could assassinate them and get away with it.

The conservative justices have, over the years, seen harbingers of tyranny in union organizing, environmental regulations, civil-rights laws, and universal-health-care plans. When confronted with a legal theory that establishes actual tyranny, they were simply intrigued. As long as Donald Trump is the standard-bearer for the Republicans, every institution they control will contort itself in his image in an effort to protect him...

It would be madness for the SCOTUS Justices to consider their own destruction if they allowed Absolute Immunity for Presidents to move forward. A single man with the power to do what he will and never held to account will easily sweep aside every law and every norm until even the courts are no more. And yet, because it's trump begging for that immunity - because it will save him from the justice he's earned over 40-plus years of fraud and other misdeeds - we could well have five conservative Justices taking the absurd move to free trump from his legal fate... and create a situation where trump can become dictator on Day One of a second term and never let go. Serwer adds:

Trump has the conservative justices arguing that you cannot prosecute a former president for trying to overthrow the country, because then they might try to overthrow the country, something Trump already attempted and is demanding immunity for doing. The incentive for an incumbent to execute a coup is simply much greater if the Supreme Court decides that the incumbent cannot be held accountable if he fails. And not just a coup, but any kind of brazen criminal behavior. “The Framers did not put an immunity clause into the Constitution. They knew how to,” Kagan pointed out during oral arguments. “And, you know, not so surprising, they were reacting against a monarch who claimed to be above the law. Wasn’t the whole point that the president was not a monarch and the president was not supposed to be above the law?”

Never mind how such a legal decision could unleash absolute power from the current Presidency of Joe Biden. The Far Right Justices may try to carve out narrow definitions of "immunity" in order to save trump from both the classified documents trial and the January 6th trial, but even then they will grant that same immunity to Biden, since even under their twisted view of the Constitution they can't grant exemptions to one (trump) specific person here. And if Biden's people are smart enough, they can figure out how to expand that "immunity" to let Biden go directly after donald trump - and his Russian-backed GOP buddies - as a clear and direct threat to the national security of the United States.

Those conservative Justices - and their Republican party allies - may think that Biden is too "institutional" in respecting the norms of political office, but they themselves are creating a partisan environment - and are openly causing disruptions in foreign policy and national security - to where Biden may have no choice but to impose the expanded Executive powers the Supreme Court is about to unleash. Like Lincoln during the crisis of secession and civil war, Biden's own congenial world-view will have to move aside for the practical reality of bending the spirit of the law to prevent trump and his lackeys from breaking the entirety of the law itself.

Because on this point, Serwer has it right:

No previous president has sought to overthrow the Constitution by staying in power after losing an election. Trump is the only one, which is why these questions are being raised now. Pretending that these matters concern the powers of the presidency more broadly is merely the path the justices sympathetic to Trump have chosen to take in order to rationalize protecting the man they would prefer to be the next president. What the justices—and other Republican loyalists—are loath to acknowledge is that Trump is not being uniquely persecuted; he is uniquely criminal.

The Republicans have tied their fate to a man who is more con artist than conservative, who is more destructive to the nation than to the Democrats.

For the love of God and for the love of the Constitution and everything America ought to stand for, these Justices need to let trump go, let him face the legal system he's mocked for too long.

And for the nation, for the LOVE OF GOD, MOM, AND APPLE PIE, stop voting Republican until all their crooks are gone from power. 

Justice Delayed Becomes Injustice, What the HELL

When I heard this (I saw it on Twitter but I'll provide an official report from NPR via Carrie Johnson and Nina Totenberg) my first thought was 

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments the week of April 22 in a high-stakes dispute over whether former President Donald Trump enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution.

The order from the court on Wednesday keeps Trump's prosecution in the Jan. 6 case on hold for at least a few more months.

The justices said, in an unsigned order, that their review would be limited to a single question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."

(deep inhale) "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK"

The good news: I was getting in my car at the workplace parking lot when I checked Twitter so I wasn't upsetting the kids at the library when I dropped that F-Bomb.

The bad news: JFC WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED

The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals was supposed to be airtight. That panel of jurists came back with a unanimous ruling that they "cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter... Doing so would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three branches."

Apparently there were at least five Supreme Court Justices who decided "nah" and want to jump into this mudpit to make their own ruling.

I considered three possible reasons why this is now happening:

1) This is just the Far Right Conservatives on the Supreme Court - three of them appointed by trump himself, expecting favors in return - doing what they can to stretch out the calendar on trump's DC felony insurrection trial (and maybe the South Florida classified documents trial) to keep it from even starting before the November general election happens, with Early Voting starting in some states by mid-September. Even if the Supreme Court ultimately affirms the lower court's ruling, it won't be until mid-August when they're expected to make such a ruling and the trial itself is expected to last at least two months (the South Florida trial is expected to last four to six months, it was never expected to wrap up before November). 

This is the most likely reason, as it's the one defense trump truly has: DELAY EVERYTHING. Even then it's such an extreme partisan move that no honest American should ever trust a SCOTUS ruling under the Roberts regime ever again.

2) The Justices saw something in the Appellate ruling that required either clarification, or they believed that a decision on Presidential Absolute Immunity required a final say from the highest court in the land. This is the least likely reason, because most legal scholars agreed with the Court of Appeals and there was no reason for SCOTUS to rule on this other than ego.

3) There are at least five Supreme Court Justices - considering how many of them are members of a Federalist Society that supports the Unitary Executive Theory that Presidents can wield incredible powers not even allowed in the Constitution - who legitimately think donald trump can claim Absolute Immunity as President and even to keep claiming after leaving office.

This is the nightmare scenario. This possibility would do exactly what the Court of Appeals warned against: Immediately break the Checks and Balances of the Constitution and basically be a suicide note ending any judicial power of the Supreme Court itself.

You might think even the Far Right Justices would recoil from the reality that granting trump that Absolute Immunity would be the end of their own power of Judicial Review. But remember, those Justices believe it is not only possible under Unitary Executive rules, but necessary. They agree with the idea of a dictator in the Oval Office just as long as it's a conservative standard bearer seizing all that power. It may destroy the Constitutional order we've all lived with for 230-plus years, but it'll give them the excuse to rebuild their conservative utopia on those ashes.

We now are facing the real and serious reality that at least five Justices - Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett (with Roberts being the only conservative who might balk at the destruction of his own jurist legacy) - will try to find a way to give trump the "Get Out of Jail Free" card that Absolute Immunity could give him.

The logical argument that would deter such a ruling - that by agreeing Presidential Absolute Immunity exists, the Supreme Court may be giving current President Joe Biden a literal license to overthrow government himself - ignores the fact that the Republican-backed Justices have twisted rulings and precedent in previous decisions in order to carve out narrow rulings to benefit only a select few. Don't put it past the Far Right Justices to come up with a legal argument that grants that immunity to trump alone. Even though our entire legal system is supposed to be based on "equality before the law" as a rule.

The Far Right may also be gambling on the possibility that even granted this weapon, Biden's own personal nature would prevent him from wielding it as he sits in the White House right now. But don't count on that. Biden may have no choice but to use such absolute power if it comes to it. He's got solid evidence right now that trump and the Republicans are colluding with a hostile foreign power - Russia - to subvert the 2024 elections, and his own intelligence agencies could be telling him by October the only way to save the United States is to declare emergency powers and arrest everybody in the GOP from trump on down. Granted, that move will trigger an open and bloody civil war, but the alternative would be to risk the likelihood that trump and his wingnut allies will sabotage the Electoral College count one way or another. And then trump gets to be dictator on Day One, and the Constitution dies for good.

Sanity and common sense tells us no one person should hold such absolute power: Not in politics, not in religion, not in law, not in life. But we're not living in sane times, are we. Not since 2015 when trump upturned everything this nation was supposed to stand for.

I'd been trying to calm other people down over the last few years, people at work and people I know online, trying to get them to hope that the worst can't happen.

Tonight, I am panicking in a way I haven't felt since that terrible night back on November 9 2016.

I am honest-to-God worried now that the worst CAN happen. That trump will evade justice for his crimes altogether. And that he'll lie and cheat his way back into a White House he will NEVER give up again.

Even exhorting every American out there to get the vote out this election cycle - which we need to do, anything we can to make it clear the majority of us DO NOT WANT trump BACK IN POWER - doesn't feel like it'll be enough.

Fuck it. We're going to fight. 

Stop trump. That's the mission now. Just fucking STOP trump. 

trump STILL The Worst Person America Ever Knew: 2024 Edition

Just as a reminder this Presidents' Day in the United States that donald trump was one of the worst to ever sit in the Executive office (via Peter Baker at the New York Times (paywalled)): 

A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American history, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. While that may not get Mr. Biden a spot on Mount Rushmore, it certainly puts him well ahead of Mr. Trump, who places dead last as the worst president ever.

Indeed, Mr. Biden may owe his place in the top third in part to Mr. Trump. Although he has claims to a historical legacy by managing the end of the Covid pandemic; rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure; and leading an international coalition against Russian aggression, Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Mr. Trump from the Oval Office.

trump was already having a bad month, so... this just piles it on.

“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” wrote Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, the college professors who conducted the survey and announced the results in The Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Trump might not care much what a bunch of academics think...

Trust me, Pete, trump is a raging self-absorbed narcissist. Of course he cares what other people think, it's what drives his fear and his anger.

...but for what it’s worth he fares badly even among the self-identified Republican historians. Finishing 45th overall, Mr. Trump trails even the mid-19th-century failures who blundered the country into a civil war or botched its aftermath like James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson.

This poll is a follow-up of sorts to the one that came out in 2021, when trump fled from the Oval Office and the damage of his tenure more tangible. It's telling that in the brief period of reflection of the last three years, few if any historians are willing to give trump some credit or improvement over the terrible mediocrities - the 19th Century disasters that were Buchanan, Pierce, and Johnson (no, the first one) - that are long gone.

There are no signs in the United States of long-term effects remaining from trump's misrule (other than the madness of his rabid MAGA base escalating their Culture War on our schools). Of the things he did that left an impact - such as signing away Afghanistan to the Taliban at the very end of his presidency - none of it was for the better.

That trump is eagerly running again for the Presidency bodes ill for the nation. It's not because trump wants to undo his terrible legacy, he wants to add to it. And he's not running for the benefit of his followers or even the nation as a whole: trump is running this 2024 so he can use the legal immunity of the Executive office to keep his orange ass out of jail.

Gods help us. We dare not let him back into the Oval Office. trump will be worse than he was before. And that term of office was shockingly bad.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY, America. Vote Biden. Vote Democratic Party in every spot on the ballot.

With All of the Defenses of Any Other Criminal Defendant: AKA Trump Is Toast

After a month of waiting, the U.S. Court of Appeals hearing donald trump's claim of "absolute immunity" reached a verdict and dropped it this morning... right on top of trump's head like a 16-ton weight. Via Carrie Johnson at NPR:

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ruled that Donald Trump does not enjoy broad immunity from federal prosecution, a major legal setback for the former president, who said he will appeal.

They wrote that for the purposes of this criminal case, "former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant."

The ruling comes a month after lawyers for Trump made sweeping claims that he enjoyed immunity from federal prosecution, claims that lawyers for the special counsel said would "undermine democracy" and give presidents license to commit crimes while in the White House, such as accepting bribes for directing government contracts or selling nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary.

It would be "a striking paradox," the judges wrote, if the president, who alone has the constitutional duty to ensure that laws be faithfully executed, "were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity."

Excuse me for a moment. (Runs around the room squeeing like it's another Fitzmas morning) Okay.

"We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter," the judges wrote. Doing so, they said, "would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three branches..."

As part of their ruling, the judges granted trump's team to file appeal up to the Supreme Court, but gave him a strict deadline of NEXT MONDAY, implying that they want this legal matter resolved quickly. Experts are pointing to the quick turnaround if SCOTUS hears the appeal that the highest court in the land would have to issue a ruling this summer at the latest, hopefully with trump facing his DC trial involving his efforts to undermine the 2020 election results well before 2024 Election Day.

If you want to read the ruling, the link to it is here.

Referring to Marcy Wheeler over at her Emptywheel blog, this is some of her takeaway from this ruling:

Let’s start with the last one, what I called posture. Judge Henderson had originally not favored an expedited review. This order forces Trump into an expedited appeals process.

The Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate through February 12, 2024. If, within that period, Appellant notifies the Clerk in writing that he has filed an application with the Supreme Court for a stay of the mandate pending the filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari, the Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate pending the Supreme Court’s final disposition of the application. The filing of a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc will not result in any withholding of the mandate, although the grant of rehearing or rehearing en banc would result in a recall of the mandate if the mandate has already issued.

The only way he can stop Judge Chutkan from issuing opinions on the remaining motions to dismiss filed last fall is if he immediately appeals to SCOTUS for a stay pending appeal, which he has already said he’d done. The only way he can get that stay is if five Justices say they think Trump will succeed on the merits and vote to grant the stay.

Steve Vladeck says that SCOTUS has a lot of options, but the two most likely are to deny the stay or to grant an appeal in this term, committing to an opinion by June...

Finally, I noted that Judge Henderson seemed to have concerns about the scope of their decision — what she described “floodgates” of follow-on charges. She at least considered the wisdom of limiting this opinion to a former President’s unofficial acts — in this case, defined as those of an office-seeker under Blassingame.

Rather than going Blassingame, though, the panel’s top line holding went Big.

The operative language in this opinion rejects the notion of Presidential immunity categorically as a violation of separation of powers.

At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment. In so holding, we act, “not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.” See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 754...

Without any specific exemptions to relate, Wheeler is pointing out the appellate judges are leaving little wiggle room for the Supreme Court justices to give trump an escape route:

But they say if they did have to review whether the indictment charged Trump for official acts, the fact that so many of the alleged acts in the indictment pertain to Trump’s role as an office-seeker, and because Presidents have no role in election certifications, the indictment would survive that more particular review anyway.

This is the kind of out that Justice Kavanaugh took on a related issue, whether the interests of Congress in reviewing an attack on the election certification preempted any Executive Privilege claims.

That is, both the District and Circuit have already said that, if they were asked to consider whether this indictment withstands an immunity claim, it substantially would.

I have no idea what SCOTUS will do. But by producing a unanimous opinion with little surface area for Justices to grab hold, Judges Henderson, Pan, and Childs may have ended up producing the most expeditious result...

For myself, this is the key paragraph in the ruling (pg. 3) that underscores just how deep in trouble trump is:

Since then, hundreds of people who breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have been prosecuted and imprisoned. And on August 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C., former President Trump was charged in a four-count Indictment as a result of his actions challenging the election results and interfering with the sequence set forth in the Constitution for the transfer of power from one President to the next. Former President Trump moved to dismiss the Indictment and the district court denied his motion. Today, we affirm the denial. For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

You can spot where the three judges are spelling out trump's culpability in the January 6th riots, by highlighting how the hundreds who rioted on his behalf have already faced justice themselves, and that trump is now due to face justice as well.

Best possible situation now is that the Supreme Court - lacking any legal loophole they can bring up in trump's defense - denies the appeal and lets the lower court ruling stand. They are well within their power to do so. They could still pick up this hot potato if they wanted to have the Highest Court In the Land put their imprint on the legal matter, but they would risk undermining the entire Constitution - destroying the checks and balances between the three branches - as the appellate court points out. And no matter what, they can't delay their ruling to save trump, as they're bound by the rules to get their decisions finalized by summer. Either they let trump run free - and destroy the rule of law altogether - or they let him face trial before the November elections.

Let justice be done. Let SCOTUS stand with the lower court ruling. Let trump face his day in federal court as soon as possible.

Preferably with a jury ruling on July 3rd so we can celebrate the next day with additional fervor.

"Just Let ME and ME ALONE Get Away With Everything," Begged trump

Today was a huge day in the American constitutional system when the appellate court considered donald "it's all about ME" trump begging the court to let him get away with EVERYTHING under his claim of "absolute immunity" while as President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) (via Carrie Johnson at NPR): 

In arguments that extended for more than an hour, three judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit pressed Trump's attorney on his sweeping claims of immunity from federal prosecution...

Trump has pleaded not guilty to four felony counts that accuse him of leading a conspiracy to cling to power and disenfranchise millions of voters in 2020. Prosecutors say that this culminated in violence at the U.S. Capitol three years ago that injured 140 law enforcement officers and shook the foundations of American democracy...

Prosecutors working for Smith say in court papers that if the U.S. Court of Appeals accepts Trump's sweeping claims, it would "undermine democracy." The special counsel team says such reasoning would give presidents license to commit crimes while in the White House, such as accepting bribes for directing government contracts or selling nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary.

James Pearce, representing the special counsel, argued Tuesday that "the president has a unique constitutional role, but he is not above the law." He added that a former president enjoys no immunity from criminal prosecution. To conclude otherwise, he said, would give rise to a "frightening" future.

No former president has ever been charged with a crime. Trump is the first. So an eventual ruling will be a landmark no matter which way the court rules. If the court sides with Trump, the federal case in Washington would be all but over...

Several conclusions from today's brief hearing as noted by Perry Stein at the Washington Post (paywalled):

...The judges seemed skeptical that presidential immunity extends as far as Trump’s lawyers claim it does.

Trump attorney D. John Sauer argued that presidential immunity means that a president cannot be prosecuted for any actions that fall under his presidential duties — unless the House first votes to impeach him and the Senate then convicts him.

Judge Florence Y. Pan, an appointee of President Biden, asked Sauer if a president could be criminally prosecuted if he ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. Such a scenario — ordering the military to do something — would fall under presidential duties. But having a rival murdered would also be a clear violation of the law.

Sauer said the Justice Department could only charge the president for giving such an order if the Senate votes to convict him first. Pan also asked him whether a president could sell pardons or nuclear secrets without being prosecuted. Sauer responded similarly.

Pan seemed skeptical and said that conceding that a president can be prosecuted for official acts in any instance — say, after the congressional impeachment and conviction process — undermines the president’s presidential immunity argument.

“Given that you’re conceding that presidents can be criminally prosecuted, doesn’t that narrow the issues before us to, ‘Can a president be prosecuted without first being impeached and convicted?’” Pan said. She added, “Once you concede that presidents can be prosecuted under some circumstances, your other arguments fall away.”

The judges were clearly concerned that accepting Trump’s argument would open a Pandora’s box of horrible acts by future presidents that would go unchecked and unpunished.

Trump’s lawyer tried to convince the panel that the real danger was letting this case go forward and opening a door to future presidents operating in fear of being prosecuted when they left office.

Gee, making future Presidents realize they can be held accountable if they break shit? MORE of that, please.

2. The judges’ ruling could rely on their reading of the impeachment clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Lawyers for both sides and the judges spent a chunk of oral arguments debating the Constitution’s impeachment clause. Under Trump attorneys’ reading of the clause, a president can only be criminally prosecuted once Congress has voted to both impeach and convict him.

Congress had voted to impeach Trump for his actions around the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Senate then voted to acquit him. At the time, some Republicans said they were voting against conviction because they said the Justice Department could investigate and decide whether to charge Trump...

This becomes part of the circular Catch-22 that the Far Right argued that trump shouldn't be impeached if his conduct was criminal, but then that he shouldn't be charged with crimes because he should have been impeached.

But we've seen impeachment and how it doesn't work: It is too partisan a mechanism. Relying on impeachment for accountability would never happen if the corrupt President's party controlled Congress and refused to be bipartisan enough to vote for removal. Impeachment is a political tool, not a prosecutorial one. That argument also ignores how previous former Presidents facing criminal charges for acts done in the White House - Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton - still had that happen even though impeachment never removed them from office (Nixon resigned first and then took a pardon, and Clinton survived the Senate vote and pled out his perjury counts). Saying that impeachment triggers double jeopardy doesn't pass the established case law.

3. The judges questioned whether Trump’s actions around the Jan 6. attack on the U.S. Capitol qualified as his official presidential duties — and whether the appeals court should even decide this.

Sauer said Trump’s actions around Jan. 6 — including meeting with the Justice Department and members of Congress about his belief that the election was stolen — were part of his presidential duties.

He also said Trump’s Twitter social media posts, some of which encouraged people to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, also constituted an official presidential communication channel.

“All of those tweets were obviously immune,” Sauer said.

In a notable exchange, Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, seemed skeptical of that claim, saying: “I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care [that] the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate federal laws.”

But she also raised the idea of sending the case back to the U.S. District Court to untangle whether Trump’s alleged acts were part of his official duties or discretionary and carried out in his capacity as a private citizen...

Judge Henderson may express that concern but it's uncertain if the other two on the panel will agree with her. This could prove a potential delay in the March trial related to this matter, but by the looks of it the whole panel isn't buying that inciting a mob to riot against Congress is part of the Executive's duties.

4. Trump attended the hearing in person, suggesting he believes his criminal prosecutions could boost his presidential bid.

One of the paradoxical problems with putting trump on criminal trial for his actions is that trump can use this to paint himself the victim of "the real crooks, the Democrats" even as he faces every likelihood of failing these appeals and finding himself in a federal court three months from now. trump is also using these trials as a means of keeping his MAGA supporters stoked and angry and ready to riot - again - on his orders should a Guilty verdict be reached before the November general election.

But trump is also powered by his narcissism. He showed up in court today as though his mere presence could intimidate the appellate judges into granting him the immunity he craves.

trump isn't interested in the legal ramifications of what he's arguing for - that a sitting President can never be held accountable for any actions committed during his tenure - he is only interested in making sure that immunity from the law applies to himself. That trump's arguments would clearly grant Joe Biden - the current sitting President - to apply that immunity by ordering a SEAL Team to assassinate trump doesn't seem to register in that Id of his. Probably because he's convinced Biden is too much of a political wimp - that Biden as a career politician respects the limitations of the office, and won't break actual laws no matter how much the Far Right lie to themselves about Biden being corrupt - to take the dark route to power trump aspires to take.

We have to remember: For decades trump has been thumbing his nose at the legal system as a businessman committing corrupt act after corrupt act, bankrupting his casinos, breaking contracts with workers, bullying victims to settle out of court, making a mockery of regulations because our prosecutors and oversight agencies never take white-collar fraud serious enough. trump is used to the idea of being immune from accountability, and he's struggling to come to terms with all the recent courtroom setbacks that are about to cripple his empire.

trump is hoping - begging even, although he'll never admit it - that the appeals court grants him that immunity, because it clears the electoral battlefield of the federal charges he's facing in DC and South Florida and makes it easier to defy the state-level trials awaiting him in New York City and Fulton County. Without that haunting him, trump can then attack Biden with impunity while his allies in the US House and Red states conspire to throw the Electoral College to trump in spite of the likely popular vote going Biden's way.

And if trump achieves all he desires, if trump regains control of the Presidency? With that belief in HIS absolute immunity, trump will run amok as a dictator the likes of which our nation's never seen (via Greg Sargent now at New Republic after the WaPo downsized him):

But there’s another way to understand Trump’s move: It’s about what comes next. If he wins on this front, he’d be largely unshackled in a second presidential term, free to pursue all manner of corrupt designs with little fear of legal consequences after leaving office again.

That Trump might attempt such moves is not idle speculation. He’s telling us so himself. He is openly threatening a range of second-term actions—such as prosecuting political enemies with zero basis in evidence—that would almost certainly strain the boundaries of the law in ugly new ways.

Now imagine him pursuing this project with a get-out-of-prosecution-free card in his pocket. “It really would permit him to be completely unconstrained if he were reelected,” Neil Eggleston, who served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama, told me...

It’s been said on social media that if Trump wins here, his second-term powers would be quasi-absolute—that he could order, say, the assassination of political foes with impunity. That overstates the matter. As former White House lawyers told me, if Trump prevails, the courts will likely affirm that actions within the “outer realm” of official duties are immune to prosecution, not that any actions (such as assassinations) are.

But a favorable decision could still unshackle Trump in a big way. Trevor Morrison, associate White House counsel under Obama, says the key is whether the courts rule that Trump has immunity on the theory that his alleged criminal conduct does fall in the outer perimeter of presidential duties—and how the courts define that perimeter. If they accept Trump’s broad version of immunity or something like it, he might argue that future potentially criminal acts also fall within that perimeter...

Kristy Parker, counsel at Protect Democracy who served as a lawyer in multiple administrations, notes that Trump has signaled clear intent to do exactly this sort of thing. He has attacked Willis’s prosecution of him as corrupt, hinted at full-scale persecution of “vermin” Americans who oppose him, and openly threatened to prosecute President Biden as retribution. “If I don’t get immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get immunity,” Trump recently raged.

In saying this, Trump essentially declared that if he is denied immunity, he will prosecute Biden on a fake finding of corruption, just as he invented corruption as a pretext for his alleged election crimes. What happens if those efforts to name and target fabricated corruption are in some sense deemed official acts?

“Trump has threatened to use the presidency to punish enemies, reward friends, and protect himself,” Parker told me. “If the courts recognize immunity for the broad array of official acts of the presidency, that will incentivize Trump to abuse those powers further...”

Gods help us if this happens.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW, JUDGES, DO NOT GRANT trump ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY.

And for the LOVE OF GOD, AMERICA, DO NOT VOTE FOR trump.

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.

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.

Update 7/21/24: Welp. This did not age well...