That Could Have Gone Better

Update: Thank you Steve for including this article in Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! I would say GO BUCS but they're not in this year's Super Bowl alas. In the meantime do sing Happy Birthday to my cat Mal the Krazy Panfurr who was born on a Super Bowl night 10 years ago! ;-)

The U.S. Supreme Court heard the matter of Colorado Supreme Court's decision to ban donald trump from the 2024 ballots over his January 6th insurrection, and by most accounts the Justices came out swift and painful against anyone in favor of a 14th Amendment Solution. Mark Joseph Stern over at Slate pretty much noted the "goose is cooked" regarding SCOTUS' view on the matter:

The Supreme Court is not going to let Colorado, or any other state, remove Donald Trump from the ballot in 2024. That’s the upshot of Thursday’s arguments in Trump v. Anderson, the blockbuster case contesting the former president’s constitutional ability to run for office. A clear majority of justices expressed overwhelming skepticism toward the plaintiffs’ claim that Trump is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment because he “engaged in insurrection.” The only real question is what rationale the court will use to reject that theory—though one emerged as a probable consensus: Justices across the ideological spectrum suggested that individual states cannot enforce Section 3 against federal candidates, at least not without congressional approval...

The notion that individual states can’t take unilateral action to strip federal candidates from the ballot has immense practical appeal, and arguably aligns with broader constitutional principles. But it is not what Section 3 says on its face, nor is it clearly borne out by the original meaning of the amendment. Many of the justices’ questions on Thursday amounted to policy arguments thinly cloaked in the language of textualism and originalism...

Amy Howe over at SCOTUSBlog covered how much of the conservative Justices looked at the matter, arguing over the history of the 14th Amendment's actual implementation:

A central issue at Thursday’s argument was whether the question of how Section 3’s ban on government service by individuals who have “engaged in insurrection” can be enforced – do states like Colorado have the power to enforce it themselves, as the voters contend, or (as Trump argues) can it only be enforced through laws passed by Congress?

Some justices looked to history, pressing Murray to provide examples of other scenarios in which states have relied on Section 3 to disqualify candidates for federal office. Murray pointed to an 1868 congressional election in Georgia, as well as to state elections and candidates disqualified by Congress, and he noted that the dearth of examples was “not surprising” because elections operated differently then, with ballots for political parties rather than individual candidates. Therefore, he reasoned, “there wouldn’t have been a process for determining before an election whether a candidate was qualified.”

But that answer did not mollify Justice Clarence Thomas, who observed that the “plethora of Confederates” still present in public life in the post-Civil War era would suggest that this issue would come up.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh echoed Thomas’ emphasis on the absence of any historical examples as evidence that states do not have the standalone power to disqualify candidates under Section 3. He cited Griffin’s Case, an 1869 decision by Chief Justice Salmon Chase, serving on a lower court. In that case, Chase ruled, Section 3 can only be enforced through laws passed by Congress.

Although the decision is not binding on the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh suggested that one year later Congress had Griffin’s Case in mind when it enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870, which gave the Department of Justice the power to bring lawsuits seeking to disqualify federal officials. For 155 years, Kavanaugh concluded, no state has attempted to disqualify a federal officer from the ballot under Section 3 because “there’s been a settled understanding” that states don’t have that power. Moreover, he added, “Congress can change that” but hasn’t done so.

Murray pushed back, suggesting that no state had tried to disqualify candidates for federal office because there had not been a need to do so. Virtually all former Confederates had received amnesty by 1876, so that there would no longer be a need to disqualify them from the ballot, he observed. And since then, he contended, there had been no reason to invoke Section 3 because the country had not previously experienced anything like the Jan. 6 attacks...

But on the question of enforcement, the court focused even more specifically on the possible implications of upholding the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision. Justice Elena Kagan was among the most vocal in expressing her concerns. Why, she queried, should one state be able to disqualify a candidate from the ballot and, in so doing, effectively determine who becomes the president of the United States? Rather than sounding like an issue for an individual state to decide, she said, that “sounds awfully national to me.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared to agree. If the court upholds the Colorado ruling, she posited, it will as a practical matter decide the issue for all the other states. Like some of her colleagues, she envisioned possible logistical problems, observing that the court would have to make its decision using the facts developed in whatever state-court case made its way to them first. In a scenario in which the factual record isn’t well developed, she asked, how should the court review those findings? It “just doesn’t seem like a state call,” she concluded...

When the liberal-leaning Justices are questioning the validity of a matter alongside the conservative ones, it doesn't look good. That Kagan was looking at the question of jurisdiction - and that Jackson was looking at the historic element that the 14th Amendment focused on ex-Confederates reaching Congress instead of the presidency - suggests that applying Section 3 to trump running for the White House - for the moment - won't happen.

The way SCOTUS is framing the debate, they could well make it that the 14th Amendment could apply but that it's up to Congress at the federal level to enforce it. The issue of what "insurrection" actually is - Jackson did berate trump's lawyer over whether an insurrection can be "organized" or not - could also get applied to the final ruling here, although it may force a set of concurrent rulings that would muddle things further.

I had hoped earlier last month when Colorado Supreme Court made their ruling that this would be the way to prevent a violent, vulgar force like trump from regaining presidential power. I did fear that the conservative-controlled U.S. Supreme Court would try to find a way to excuse trump's behavior in some way: Thing is, the point of contention that today's arguments aimed for - the question of who has the power to enforce the 14th Amendment - did reach valid conclusions. I have to admit that banning trump from the ballot over his calls for insurrection on January 6th may not work after all.

There is still the matter of the federal court case charging trump on four counts over his misdeeds that day, with the question of trump's efforts to delay that trial set to get resolved soon - this Monday at least - and whether the Supreme Court will hear that and rewrite all of reality to grant trump his request for Absolute Immunity. THAT seems less likely to pass judicial scrutiny even for the conservative justices like Roberts.

But then again...

We voters have to take into consideration that the legal system is not going to let us off the hook anytime soon. It is up to us - to the 81 millions who voted for Biden in 2020, and any newer voters rising to join those ranks - to return to the ballot box this November and ensure trump and his Republican lackeys get denied any claim to power by our power to vote.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY, America. Do not vote trump, at all.

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.

Painful Way to Kill Your Political Career, Dean

Oh, while I was surviving MegaCon yesterday, apparently the Democratic Party officially started their Presidential primarying in South Carolina, with incumbent Joe Biden stomping hard on his primary opponents with 95 percent of the vote across the entire state (via Asma Khalid at NPR):

President Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, according to The Associated Press. It is the first official nominating contest for the party, and one that Democrats hope sends a message to Black voters.

As the incumbent president, Biden had been widely expected to carry the primary. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and author Marianne Williamson were also on the ballot...

The Democrats are changing up the order of primaries this cycle, trying to shift away from the small populated states like Iowa and New Hampshire that also don't display the demographic diversity of the party itself. South Carolina isn't a major population state like California, New York, or Illinois - Democratic-leaning states - but it's big enough to matter.

Unwilling to play by the new rules, New Hampshire still held an unsanctioned primary last month allowing write-ins to happen for the Democrats while the Republicans held theirs officially. Biden STILL cleaned up there without campaigning a single day there while his opponents Williamson - you might remember her from last time - and Phillips showed up and begged for votes. 

You might notice I haven't run a Character profile - based on Professor Barber's work - on Dean Phillips even though he threw his hat into the Democratic primaries months ago: Mostly because I viewed Phillips attempts to kneecap the incumbent candidate Biden was doomed to failure. In the modern era of presidential elections - I would say turn of the 20th Century with McKinely (not Teddy!) - there hasn't been a successful challenge against a first-term President within the party. Teddy Roosevelt tried to against his successor Taft but failed (running third-party instead). Truman and LBJ technically quit their campaigns for re-election when they saw the writing on the wall, so we can't be certain how those would have turned out. Thing is, Phillips was in no position - he was a literal unknown backbencher congresscritter with no national profile; he lacks the natural charisma any challenger needs to prevail; and Gods know what he was actually campaigning for - to challenge a well-known relatively popular figure like Biden who isn't quitting any time soon. 

If I can quote from Tori Otten at New Republic:

Phillips is running a long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination against President Biden. If you’re wondering how that’s going for him, Phillips won just 19.6 percent of votes during New Hampshire’s unofficial Democratic primary on Tuesday. Biden won 55.8 percent—as a write-in candidate.

Following his New Hampshire loss, Phillips revealed Wednesday morning on Fox & Friends that he had attended one of Donald Trump’s rallies to try to connect with far-right voters. When his actions prompted backlash, Phillips spoke out against political divisions...

Phillips then tried to point to the 2016 Electoral College map which shows a lot of Republican Red. But he erred by thinking geography matters instead of actual population density: Online critics hit Phillips by pointing out the Democratic Blue places on the map have more people who actually matter ("Land doesn't vote, people do!")

“There was probably a lane for someone to do reasonably well against Biden,” tweeted Osita Nwanevu, a columnist for The Guardian and contributing editor for The New Republic, “but being maximally annoying to every constituency in the Democratic Party at once wasn’t it, obviously.”

I exaggerated a bit earlier when I said nobody know what Phillips is campaigning for: He's actually campaigning on the belief that Biden is old, and that Biden's too unpopular to both the Democratic voting base and the independent voters overall.

Depending on which poll you're looking at, Biden's popularity isn't as healthy as it ought to be - considering the positive economic news Biden keeps generating over the past year thanks to his Infrastructure Bill efforts - but then again polls this far out from November are unpredictable as hell.

And regarding Biden's popularity with the Democratic voting base, those massive wins in New Hampshire (unofficially) and South Carolina - where Williamson beat out Phillips by a percent - ought to bury that particular narrative right quick.

Democratic voters will support their incumbent candidate, especially considering how Biden seems to be the only candidate who can keep donald trump at bay. It's likely - again, no guarantees - that the Indy voters who turned out against trump in 2020 will do so again in 2024 and vote for Joe. Phillips is essentially committing political suicide doing all this.

How Phillips got talked into thinking he could be a savior candidate to outduel Biden and then defeat trump remains a scandal of its own. Approached by a "political strategist" in Steve Schmidt, a campaign advisor most famous for talking John McCain into taking Sarah Palin as his Veep running mate, who claims he's "worried" about Dems relying on an aging President Biden (as though trump is any healthier three years younger and clearly more physically and mentally unfit). You have to look at who's paying Schmidt - deep-pocket "technocrat" billionaires worried about their tax cuts and Biden's pro-union stances - to get an idea of who's really worried about 2024 (and who they really want to win, which is trump). Schmidt basically went fishing for an egocentric millionaire among the Democratic ranks to be the stalking horse to weaken Biden's standing within the party itself.

Good news is, that's not working.

Bad news is, we're getting a clearer picture of how the real Political Establishment - not just the deep-pocket billionaires paying for everything, but also the "expert consultant" class and the upper-income media punditry - don't view trump as the dictatorial, openly destructive force that he is.

Gods help us. This 2024 election is going to be a war, with disinformation coming from every media outlet "convinced" that Biden can't win... even though Biden is winning the primaries and proving his popularity with actual voters with barely a finger lifted.

Get out the vote, America. Support Biden. Stop trump (and his billionaire buddies).

And let Dean Phillips crawl back to some state college on a guest lecturer gig for the rest of his life. His political career is toast. If he thinks he can make a comeback in 2028 based on his dismal performance this year, he's more delusional that trump.

I Survived Orlando Megacon 2024

You regular readers know I indulge in attending the local (Central Florida) comic cons as I grew up on science fiction, comic books superheroes, anime, and general geekery.

This year for some reason, Orlando hosted their MegaCon in early February (they've usually been in May). While I missed attending last year's, I decided to attend this year as there were a couple of celebrities I hoped to see during the Q&A sessions and because I am trying to get into Magic The Gathering gaming and was hoping there would be an open table session for beginners to attend.

So I braved the I-4 Saturday traffic in relatively cool weather - yes, it drops below 60 F in Florida - and made reasonable time to get to the South Concourse parking lot to get on a shuttle bus to circle five blocks over to the West Concourse (the LOOOOOONG part of the Orange County Convention Center) and begin my day's journey.

This is actually the South Convention Center Concourse, where most of the
day parking is located. There are buses running shuttle service all
comiccon long. Seriously though, Orange County needs
to build an elevated rail between the Concourses to free up the
regular traffic on International Drive.

Getting into a comic con nowadays is a convoluted affair.
They give you a badge with a microchip in it, so you
HAVE to "activate" the card using the con's App. It takes forever
if you're not tech-savvy, and about 10 minutes if you ARE.

And this was the badge they gave me. Chewie Einstein.

This is the part of walking through a massive empty space
to get to the part of the West Concourse where the vendors set up.

Once you get inside, you then have to find your events between
three (or in some places four) levels. This was still early in the morning
before noontime as more people got inside Megacon.

At least I found the LEGO Club display room!!! Thank you
Greater Florida Lego Users Group!

Give me a minute or twelve to upload video of a working
LEGO City!

I showed up for Paul Bettany's Q&A session on the 
slight possibility his wife Jennifer Connelly would show up
and keep him in line. Alas.

This is in the Chapin Theater, an auditorium where the comic con
holds a number of A-lister interviews. I was last in here for
Hayley Atwell's appearance, if I recall it properly.

You'd be amazed how many of the fans gushed over
Bettany's work in A Knight's Tale instead of his work as
The MCU's Vision.

This was around 2:00 PM as the crowds were clearly
packing the main floor.

It's R2D2, rolling like a boss!!!

Got to sit in on a panel for Frank Cho, one of the better-known
"Good Girl" artists in the comics industry. It's more than just fanservice though, as
Cho is regarded as one of the best illustrators, period.
I got into him through his Liberty Meadows work (a cartoon strip in the vein of
Bloom County but with more gratuitous sex and violence as part of the absurdist humor).

They had a camera set up to focus on Cho's penciling as
he demonstrated the illustrator's work creating a comic book scene.

Cho took suggestions from the room, which bounced between
Wolverine to Wonder Woman to dinosaurs. I suggested "Wolverine
dancing with Wonder Woman with a T-Rex playing bass guitar
in the background" and Cho immediately called for security
to escort me out.

So as you can see he's drawing Wolverine.

Cho is using the mid-90s outfit that was more dark browns
and more shading than the famous bright yellow uniform
of the 70s-80s.

So it looks like Wolverine is punching somebody.
'Cause that's what Wolverine DOES...

Hey wait a second...

Is that...?

Oh no...

WOLVERINE JUST GUTTED HOWARD THE DUCK!!!
AAAAAAaaaaaaaa!

This is one of the prints I bought from Cho at his artist's booth, to give you an idea of what he draws. I also bought a Liberty Meadows and a Batman/Catwoman prints.

Speaking of artists, a number of famous comics artists were in Artist' Alley this MegaCon,
including a rare visit from Frank Miller, one of the creative forces from the late 1970s-
early 1980s who contributed to the massive culture boom - The Dark Knight Returns - of graphic narratives/superhero stories in the mainstream.
I took this picture late in the day to demonstrate the line that had been ongoing since 11:00AM...
which stretched across the open footpath to another line you can kind of see stretching off
to the right of the photo. If I had joined that line at 11, I would have arguably gotten to 
meet Mr. Miller and get an autographed poster or some such... in about two hours of waiting!
I'd have missed half of everything else I wanted to do at the con. NONE of the other
major artists had a waiting line that long. 

Speaking of long lines, THIS awaited me as I walked over to the Chapin Theater part
of the complex in hopes of attending the big celebrity draw of the day:
Ewan McGregor (Obi Wan) and Hayden Christensen (Anakin), both insanely hot Star Wars
fandom draws due to their return in popular Disney-Plus series. 

This is the Fourth floor entrance to Chapin Theater... packed wall to wall with fans many of
whom started forming the line at 2:00PM (!). I got there about 5:15PM... only to get the 
word from the con's security handlers announcing to the whole floor that they've already
reached max capacity for the auditorium and the cutoff was... can you see that one white hat
to the middle left of the photo? Yeah. That was the cutoff. Everybody else between that hat
and me were doomed. DOOMED I SAY.
That was kind of the last thing on my to-do list, and unable to do that I headed to the shuttle buses...

Except when I got to the buses they were coded by color routes instead of parking lots, and I had
no idea which color route went back to the South parking lot! /rage
Instead of waiting for the bus, I dared to walk back across a sky bridge between the Concourses
(See? The county at least did THAT! They should put in rail lines instead...). On the way back
I decided to get a photo of the Orlando Eye that's up the road on International Drive.

And here's a closer shot of it at a traffic stop as I drove to where all the restaurants are north
of the convention center. 'Cause after a full day of walking, I earned that pizza for dinner!

It took another three hours to get back home - an hour and an half getting off a packed
International Drive coping with merging traffic, escapees from the MegaCon, and idiot drivers, THIS
is why I scream about Orlando/Orange County needing an elevated rail system - 
just so I could get in a head rub with Mal the Panfurr who turns 10 years old this weekend!

And so that was my comic con adventure. I've gotten a little weary of attending these things - yes, I am getting too old to walk across half the landscape, and there aren't enough chairs and benches to go around - unless I can scare up any friends or family who might want to attend any cons in the future, this might be my last one. Who knows? A future MegaCon may entice with a can't miss celebrity (but it would involve me risking the entire day getting in line and waiting, sigh).

A Quick Reminder How BAD trump Was As We Head Into 2024

Saw this on Twitter (screw your X, Elon) and needed to share:

The thing that gets me about Trump is that not only is he a terrible person and his policies mostly just jumbled nonsense. It’s that he’s a terrible administrator- people seemed to have memory-holed how dysfunctional his Administration was. Nobody who worked for him praises him.

— Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) February 2, 2024

Every tell-all book, every post-administration interview of trump's Cabinet members and advisors, every single story we got out of those dark years told us how trump would berate and belittle his own people, insult them to their faces, mock their expertise. trump drove half his staff to resign every six months by my recollection, and the ones who stayed on the whole tenure were doing so to manage their own grifts.

trump was an agent of chaos, unlike any other Active-Negative force we had sitting in the Oval Office. The likes of Nixon, Johnson, Hoover, Wilson... at least they maintained some form of self-discipline and awareness.

Even if trump fails to make himself dictator should he ever cheat his way back into the White House, his failures as a leader will tear this nation apart for good. We barely survived the last time.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY, America, do NOT vote trump this 2024.

 

The Mock Trials of a Mockable Republican House

Update: Many thanks to driftglass for sharing this article to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please take a moment to read the blog, I have more articles to share (alas, I am out of punch and pie).

I've written before how the Republican Party has no issues to run on, just outrage... and much of that outrage manufactured by themselves in order to frame the debate on their terms and move the goalposts whenever they want.

For 2024 - desperate to make Joe Biden presidency look bad to both the Beltway media and the general voters - the Republicans are doing everything they can to raise the partisan specter of impeachment, even when they have nothing to go on. Not only at Biden himself, but at people in his administration, such as the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (via David A. Graham at the Atlantic):

The entire thing is a fantasy. The impeachment is based on differences in border policy, rather than any misconduct. Even as they move it forward, House Republicans are avoiding legislation on the matter, working to snuff out a bill that would actually affect the border. And if Mayorkas is impeached, he is all but certain to avoid conviction in the Senate.

No precedent exists for such an impeachment. In fact, only one Cabinet speaker has been impeached in American history. In 1876, War Secretary William Belknap was accused of accepting kickbacks in return for lucrative federal posts. Facing impeachment, he resigned. The House impeached him anyway, but the Senate didn’t convict, in part because some members felt the resignation removed Belknap from their jurisdiction...

The articles allege that Mayorkas “repeatedly violated laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security. In large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States.” But experts on both constitutional law and immigration have roundly criticized the move as overreach, noting that Mayorkas is under attack for using powers that administrations of both parties have employed legally for decades...

The charges themselves are a mess. David Bier, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has picked apart the articles of impeachment and found, for example, that Mayorkas is charged with failing to follow circuit-court decisions that were reversed by the Supreme Court. Another passage appears to charge Mayorkas with using a power granted to him by Congress.

If Congress doesn’t like the laws, it could change them. But in recent years, under both Democrats and Republicans, Congress has left more and more power to the executive branch. This is especially true in the area of immigration, where bipartisan attempts at overhauls keep falling short. Because neither party can get exactly what it wants, they’ve chosen to do nothing. That has left the system riddled with holes, often sloppily patched by successive administrations...

If the House Republicans are serious about fixing immigration - even if it's to pander to the racist demagoguery by making it harder for asylum seekers and gainfully employable to even apply for the paperwork - they'd be passing legislation. Instead, they're holding sham trials against their hated targets. Mayorkas is not the guilty party here: the House Republicans are.

If only there were a way for the Senate Democrats to flip any impeachment matter the House brings to them by charging the House Republicans over false allegations, manufactured evidence, and acts of perjury. Maybe then the Republicans will settle the fuck down and actually pass legislation to resolve the matter however possible.

Except they won't. donald trump openly doesn't want any immigration laws passed this year because it's the only means of stoking MAGA outrage he's got left.

(trump and his acolytes begin attacking Taylor Swift for being a fan of her boyfriend's football team)

Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me...

The Drumbeats To Another Unhelpful War

The Middle East is back to being a full-blown military crisis, with Israel and Hamas happily drowning each other in a bloody Gaza battlefield, and with Yemeni rebels staging drone and missile attacks on shipping lanes, and now with extremist forces in Syria staging deadly attacks on a U.S. outpost along the Jordanian border (via Zeke Miller and Lolita C Baldor at AP News):

President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. “shall respond” after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden, who was traveling in South Carolina, asked for a moment of silence during an appearance at a Baptist church’s banquet hall.

“We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls in an attack on one of our bases,” he said. After the moment of silence, Biden added, “and we shall respond...”

The large drone struck a logistics support base in Jordan known as Tower 22. It is along the Syrian border and is used largely by troops involved in the advise-and-assist mission for Jordanian forces.

Central Command said approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel were deployed to the base. The three who were killed and most of the wounded were Army soldiers, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to give details not yet made public.

The small installation, which Jordan does not publicly disclose, includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops. Austin said the troops were deployed there “to work for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” Three officials said the drone struck near the troops’ sleeping quarters, which they said explained the high casualty count...

We are facing here in the states calls by the usual suspects of neoconservative foreign policy rabblerousers still eager for major military strikes - if not straight-up invasion - of Iran. Never mind how most of these "bomb Tehran" advocates are refusing to provide any military aid to Ukraine against a major global threat to democracy in Russia.

Whatever threat Iran poses to American interests abroad - and it is serious - we have to recognize how Iran and Russia are linked at the hips in their efforts to disrupt the Middle East. They've teamed up to provide military support to Syria - the source of that deadly attack - as well as providing aid through Syria to anti-Israeli forces like Hamas and Hezbollah.

As much as Iran hates the U.S. on their own terms, they're just the front, the public face of the bigger threat of Putin backing the Ayatollahs in order to give Putin what he needs: A major distraction for the United States to abandon NATO and Ukraine to Russian conquest. (Think Sollozzo and Tattaglia fronting for Barzini all along).

Going into a direct war with Iran is still a bad idea, same as I said years ago when trump was threatening to invade. If the U.S. goes barging in, we'll be doing it mostly on our own as our regional allies are either too busy committing war crimes (Israel) or unable to engage without disruptions in their own nations (Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Jordan). NATO won't engage because they'll be too wary of Putin's ambitions to send their military forces elsewhere.

If there's any good news, it's that Iran won't be in any decent shape to engage in war themselves, having shipped off a lot of their own weaponry to Russia's war effort and dealing with internal unrest that the U.S. could exploit instead of sending in troops.

Biden has difficult choices ahead. "Proportional responses" by bombing specific Iranian - or Syrian, considering how they are the proxies to Iran's involvement - military hubs hasn't worked well as deterrents before. More aggressive attacks would escalate in ways our regional allies would regret.

It's not helping that the Republicans in Congress - especially the House - are refusing to provide any kind of military funding to allow Biden a free hand in whatever foreign policy decision he makes here. Especially considering how obvious it is that Putin benefits from Middle East turmoil - to where providing more military and financial aid to Ukraine would actually help our efforts to calm the region - and so trump's political allies do not want to upset that apple cart.

I would not argue for war with Iran. I would look to doing something to cut into Syria's military capabilities, and something to support the Iranian citizenry's efforts to end the theocratic despotism hurting them. Anything to avoid another quagmire as our nation tries to bring the bloodshed in Gaza to a peaceful end.

The Drug-Induced Highs of a trumpian White House

Studio producer: Boys! Are you buzzing?
Beatle John: No thanks! We've got the car! 

-- from "Help!"

Having survived - barely - the insanity of donald trump's presidency - in which the madness of the Far Right wingnut mindset converged on our nation's capital and didn't let us relax for a single moment - there was this oft-asked question "Are you fucking high or something" during those years that never really got answered because not a lot of people wanted a serious confirmation.

There'd been rumors for years that trump himself was thriving on an Adderall addiction - or at least some variation of it used to treat ADHD - and it'd been something deserving of a full investigation to ensure our leader on the global stage wasn't as high a fooking kite half the time. Considering the many crazy things that came from the trump years - not just the constant barrage of insane statements - such as trump's open musing about using NUKES to combat hurricanes as well revelations the staff couldn't figure out light switches, this was not an unwarranted concern.

It turns out the concern did lead to a formal investigation by an Inspector General's office, which finally released a full report which documented how the White House's internal clinic had turned into a pill-mill dispensary that would put a South Florida pharmacy to shame:

In 2018, the DoD Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) Hotline received complaints alleging that a senior military medical officer assigned to the White House Medical Unit engaged in improper medical practices. Additionally, several of the Hotline complaints were regarding the pharmaceutical practices and eligibility for care of some patients treated at DoD executive medicine facilities within the National Capital Region. In May 2018, the DoD OIG initiated an investigation of the allegations about the White House Medical Unit senior military medical officer.

In September 2019, the DoD OIG announced this evaluation to determine how executive medicine facilities within the National Capital Region, including the White House Medical Unit, implement internal controls to ensure safe pharmaceutical practices and patient eligibility. We conducted site visits to meet with key officials and observe executive medicine eligibility and pharmaceutical management practices. We interviewed over 120 officials, including interviews of hospital administrators, military medical providers, and pharmacists. We analyzed the transcripts of 70 interviews conducted by the DoD OIG Administrative Investigations (AI) Component of former White House Military Office employees who served within the White House between 2009 and 2018. This evaluation incorporates direct quotes from the testimony of these witnesses. We reviewed over 200 documents, including Federal criteria, DoD guidance, military Service policies, MTF internal standard operating procedures, and pharmacy procurement and inventory records...

We concluded that, except for the White House Medical Unit, the National Capital Region executive medicine clinics that we visited did not procure, store, or dispense controlled substances or other prescription medications; rather, they relied on full‑service military treatment facility pharmacies for all pharmaceutical support. The National Capital Region executive medicine clinics relied on full‑service base or post pharmacies for all pharmaceutical support. Additionally, other than the White House Medical Unit, the Joint Commission, an independent health care accreditation agency, accredited all National Capital Region pharmacy operations, as required by DoD Manual 6025.13.

Conversely, the White House Medical Unit’s pharmaceutical services included the full scope of pharmacy operations, including storage and inventory, prescribing and dispensing, procurement, and disposal, and was not credentialed by any outside agency. We concluded that all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards. In addition, the Military Health System senior leaders did not oversee the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations.

Without oversight from qualified pharmacy staff, the White House Medical Unit’s pharmaceutical management practices may have been subject to prescribing errors and inadequate medication management, increasing the risk to the health and safety of patients treated within the unit. Additionally, the White House Medical Unit’s pharmaceutical management practices ineffectively used DoD funds by obtaining brand‑name medications instead of generic equivalents and increased the risk for the diversion of controlled substances...

The IG report added a footnote that "diversion of controlled substances" is unlawful.

We found that the White House Medical Unit provided a wide range of health care and pharmaceutical services to ineligible White House staff in violation of Federal law and regulation and DoD policy. Additionally, the White House Medical Unit dispensed prescription medications, including controlled substances, to ineligible White House staff. In analyzing the testimonies of former White House Military Office employees, we found that White House Medical Unit senior leaders directed eligibility practices that did not comply with DoD guidance. This analysis also found that several former White House Medical Unit military medical providers stated that they were unable to act outside of the White House Medical Unit’s historical practices and that they were not empowered to deny requests from senior White House Medical Unit leaders...

The report itself is about 80 pages long and includes a full list of the types of drugs getting doled out by the Medical Unit, you can see a list on p. 24 that happens to include a bunch of mood-altering meds and stuff like Fentanyl that can get you arrested if you were carrying this stuff down the road to Anacostia.

Why fight a War on Drugs when your in-house pharmacy
can order it all for you? Avon and Marlo can keep their corners...

The original news coverage on this story focused on the IG's complaint that the White House was wasting thousands of dollars prescribing brand-name medications when government policy is to order the cheaper generics. But the mainstream media needs to wake up and recognize that they've been sitting on this story since reports got out in 2018 that the White House pharmacy had turned into a "grab and go" dealer's corner.

There are serious questions coming from this report that need answering here:

• Who was in control at the White House Medical Unit that allowed this situation to spiral out of control? (Hint: Ronny Jackson has a lot of fingerprints all over this)
• Who are the unauthorized people at the White House getting all these meds? Did they abuse these drugs in any way, or worse were they reselling it to other staffers or people on the outside?
• Were any of these questionable mood-altering medications going to White House personnel without proper approval or oversight from actual doctors? Considering the "authorized" persons would be the President, Vice President, Cabinet-level Secretaries, Joint Chiefs, and close family members, we need to know if trump or VP Pence were downing Ambien like M&Ms (seriously, I doubt Pence is a pill-popper here. It's the other guy who has that rep). 

This is a serious scandal. Our leadership up and down the chain of command needs to be clear-headed as much as possible. If enough people were doped out on stuff that would inhibit thought - or worse promote impulsive dangerous behavior - we would have had major crises that would have caused pain and suffering across the b--

(re-evaluates the insanity of how trump's administration triggered tariff wars, those immigration policies based on cruelty and racism, the flubbed responses to COVID pandemic and other emergencies, and trump's utter failure using Sharpies to redraw maps)

Yyyyeeeeeeaaaah, holy crap a lot of that makes more sense now.

In the meantime, don't look at me when it comes to drug abuse. I don't even get drunk (much). Always Sober and Never Sane is my motto. 

I get high on life. And America!!!

And to everyone caught working at trump's White House back in the day:

Beatle John: It WAS you buzzing! You naughty boy!

trump's Refuge in Vulgarity Now Costs him Millions

Lordy, all this not winning from trump when it comes to legal accountability. A second trial involving trump's defamation towards E. Jean Carroll when she came forward with her rape allegations ended with the jury finding major punitive damages against him (via Ximena Bustillo at NPR):

A New York jury on Friday ordered former President Donald Trump to pay a total of $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for ruining her credibility as an advice columnist when he called her a liar after she accused him of sexual assault.

The jury awarded Carroll $65 million in punitive damages, $11 million for the damage to her reputation and another $7.3 million. Trump is almost certain to appeal the verdict.

Despite the size of the penalty, the verdict was not unexpected. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled even before the trial that Trump had in fact defamed Carroll. The jury only had to decide how much Trump owed her — not if he was liable. This is the second time Trump has been ordered pay Carroll; last year he was mandated by a jury to pay $5 million for a separate instance of defamation...

This one is different from the first trial trump faced against Carroll and lost. That matter revolved around her rape allegations directly, which she was able to file under a special law New York had passed to let rape victims confront their attackers in civil court. This matter revolved around trump just being a vicious gaslighting defaming asshole, which Carroll's lawyers were able to prove in court especially as trump kept attacking her AND the judge throughout this particular matter.

It quickly became a question not if the jury would find trump liable, but how much they would set the punishment to see what would work to shut him up. David A. Graham at the Atlantic is curious to see if $83 million-plus at this point would do it:

Although Trump’s fortune is enormous, usually estimated in the billions, he is likely to feel the cost of today’s verdict. First, he is a notorious skinflint—he once cashed a 16-cent check sent to him as a prank by Spy magazine—so any cost, especially one denominated in eight figures, will pain him. Second, much of his net worth is tied up in illiquid assets such as real estate or intangible ones such as brand value. The former president sometimes acts like he has limited cash flow, so coming up with $83 million (if that amount is sustained) might not be simple...

The second defamation case was entirely an own goal by Trump. Having lost the first case, all he really had to do was stop publicly assailing Carroll. He didn’t have to admit that he was wrong. He didn’t have to admit that he had sexually assaulted Carroll. He didn’t even have to admit that he had defamed her. He just had to stay quiet.

But this being Trump, he couldn’t do it...

What had been trump's greatest legal strength - his willingness to bully and harass his legal targets until they surrendered to him and settled for less money and no admission from himself - is now his biggest weakness because he can never shut up. trump can't stop attacking anyone and everyone he perceives are his enemies, and trump can't stop lying like he does when he sells himself as both hero and victim.

And he's now going against legal opponents who either cannot walk away from the fight (like Carroll), or they have the resources both legal and financial to take the fights to the bitter end, like the state of New York going after trump's tax evasion and acts of fraud.

We are all, by the by, waiting for the judge to return the findings in THAT matter any day now. Which should come before the New York criminal trial into trump's hush money payments set for late March. We're still waiting to find out if the federal appellate court will determine if trump has absolute immunity, and if that would allow the DC court case into trump's involvement in January 6th to proceed sometime in March as well (it's looking like it might get delayed until mid-year).

And this is the grifting, law-breaking, vulgar con artist the Republican Party still wants to represent them for the presidency in 2024. Gods help us all.

The Disaster of DeSantis

I hadn't been paying too much attention to Ron DeSantis' presidential campaigns because quite honestly there wasn't much there to begin with.

I could have kept up with all the reporting about how mismanaged and unfocused his organization had been. I could have spent a lot of time focusing on DeSantis' many failures to even pretend to be a normal human being, given all the reports out there of how he can't even smile properly at rallies and debates.

I did spend time headdesking over how DeSantis - supposedly with this great Ivy League education going to Harvard and Yale - didn't have enough brain cells to spot the word FASCIST in a snowflake a stealth protestor gifted him at an early rally. How the hell did he even get out of Dunedin High with that lack of awareness?

What did matter about DeSantis' presidential ambitions was how he used his role as bully (not governor) to get the Florida Legislature to pass increasingly obscene legislation to ban abortion; attack trans and gay teens across the state; decry studies of racism and slavery as woke even trying to rewrite history to claim slavery had "benefits" (that was particularly offensive); and even go after corporations like Disney because they refused to roll over and play to his anti-gay agenda.

All so DeSantis could pander to the extremist Far Right voting base of the Republican Party and steal them away from donald trump.

Well, guess what Ron.

Those MAGA morons sold their souls to trump ages ago, and they ain't giving him up for some unhappy, wallowing mental midget trying to pretend he's a Machiavellian mastermind. Anybody thinking they were going to steal away trump's support have to be morons themselves. The best chance was to outlast the primaries, keep your name on the ballot at least, and pray to God trump ended up convicted in any of the criminal trials happening this year (or gets barred from the ballot for inciting insurrection under the 14th Amendment).

DeSantis spent apparently $130 million on his presidential bid, and all he got was a terrible second-place finish in a barely-attended Iowa caucus and every sign he was going to lose New Hampshire to Nikki Haley. (this begs the question for a campaign as mismanaged as this where the hell did that $130 million go?)

So of course DeSantis decided today to suspend the campaign and support the monstrous trump (via Jeongyoon Han at NPR):

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose hardline right-wing policies in his state garnered much public attention and made him an early favorite for the 2024 presidential race, suspended his bid for the Republican nomination on Sunday in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Gov. DeSantis also endorsed the former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination...

DeSantis' exit from the Republican presidential nomination field creates a path for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as the only conservative alternative to Trump's candidacy left in the race. Trump and Haley will square off in the New GOP Hampshire primary on Tuesday...

There have been real questions about DeSantis' campaign after his distant second-place finish in Iowa. He pledged to continue and focus on South Carolina, but his campaign and super PAC supporting him, which had spent tens of millions supporting him, has spent nothing on campaign ads since Iowa.

DeSantis' main campaign message was that he would be better at delivering the same kinds of policies that Trump would be in favor of, because he doesn't have the same baggage that Trump carries from his numerous indictments and federal charges. He vowed to rid the country of "wokeism," a term he often used to criticize liberal policies, win the presidency by a wide margin, and deliver on issues that Republicans care about — much like how he says he has in Florida...

It turned out attacking "Wokeism" didn't appeal in other states where racism is not as controversial a topic. It didn't help DeSantis that in half of his battles fighting "The Woke" he's lost - or is losing - in humiliating fashion. Getting outmaneuvered by Disney lawyers using British-era "Rules Against Perpetuities" to deny DeSantis' takeover of their Reedy Creek oversight board didn't look good either.

All DeSantis has really done for the state of Florida is mismanage it all - much like his national campaign - focusing on appearances instead of creating actual solutions. While DeSantis has been attacking gays and trans and women and Blacks, he's ignored the growing home insurance crisis. While DeSantis has been warring against Woke, he's been dismantling what had been a growing and successful public university system even turning the honors-level New College institution into a virtual paper mill.

If you think DeSantis' ending his failed presidential bid will make him let up on his arch-conservative governing, don't. He's still a petty little tyrant hoping to get his revenge on all the people who humiliated him on his climb to the top (and arguably thinking about running in 2028 if - Gods help us - trump fails to steal 2024).

All this disastrous campaign proved is that trump is an unstoppable juggernaut within the Republican Party. trump pretty much owns the GOP now. It's just a question of how many Republican voters who haven't bought into the MAGA madness are willing to turn away from that.

Just stop voting Republican, America. Doesn't matter if it's DeSantis or trump or Haley or any of the other would-be dictators waiting in the wings.