Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

https://i.imgur.com/9jxOzBk.png

I actually was saying DON'T lock her up! I'm a feminist!

Not going to try to look it up, but I assume he means it was Michael Flynn at the GOP convention and then all of his crowds who just kept chanting it. It's possible there isn't any individual instance of Trump himself saying it, even though he encouraged and gloried in it. (But Trump being Trump, it's also very possible that he did say it and is just lying.)

he did say it out loud himself, and he actually told Hillary he was going to appoint a special counsel to investigate her if he won.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-denies-ever-saying-lock-151844115.html

he said it a ton!!

quelle surprise

norm eisen is on pbs and something i didn't know is that he and other people sitting in the courtroom had binoculars to look at the jury! imagine being in that jury and seeing all these people just sitting there staring at you with binoculars for 6 weeks.

Extremely good piece from Epner:

https://mitchellepner.substack.com/p/on-the-meaning-of-even-one-day-in

this is the best discussion and analysis that i have seen yet about trump, the verdict, the past via Nixon, and trump's appeal and legacy. especially his last points. the glass half full/half dark & sad metaphor will stick with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NT9iWsCyTM

The point Naftali makes that has the most immediate relevance is that the Republican Party and its leaders all up and down the line now have a deep vested interest in convincing at least 50% of the nation's voters that the justice system in the USA is thoroughly corrupt and that the Democratic Party is to blame for this and therefore is a corrupt and evil influence on the nation. All through the coming election they will hammer at this theme, because the alternative is to say that they have become so corrupted that they've nominated a criminal to lead the country. That kind of rhetoric is going to be devastating to an already ugly political climate.

Thanks, Obama.

was just reading the latest on the other three cases, hoping that at least one might take place before the election.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/06/02/trump-trials-next-cases-after-verdict/
free link: https://wapo.st/3Ktnfiw

In Georgia — where Trump and 14 others face state racketeering charges related to their 2020 efforts to reverse the former president’s defeat in the state — the case is in a holding pattern.

Prosecutors and defendants are waiting on the timing of an appeal of a lower court judge’s decision to allow Willis to remain on the case despite a romantic relationship with an outside attorney she had hired to serve as lead prosecutor on the case. The Georgia Court of Appeals is not expected to take up the case before late summer, with a ruling not expected before late 2024 or early 2025.

The trial judge, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott T. McAfee, is unlikely to schedule the start of a trial against Trump before the appellate court rules.

forgive me if this is a silly question, but...why can't Willis just...not be on the case? is there no one else capable of doing it? does she have the secret sauce that just has to be on the case? didn't she already massively fuck up once in this case? why not just step down and save a bunch of time?? it's pretty fucking important to try to get a trial in before the election, right? if he wins, there is no trial at all!

anyway, just a little frustrated that he openly committed crimes about 3 and a half years ago now, and everyone knows it, and somehow these trials aren't going to happen before the election

the snail's pace of this is showing that not only is a president above the law, while they're president, but they're above the law for the next 4 years (at least) as well, because they won't be held accountable until they get another chance of becoming president and becoming extra-above the law

Thanks for sharing that piece, Ned.

Yes, I can tell you jail is Not Fun.

okay Alfred you can't leave us hanging like that

is there a handy list of all the things donald trump has claimed was rigged?

okay Alfred you can't leave us hanging like that

― Are you addicted to struggling with your horse?

oh, ha. Call it a youthful indiscretion about 22 years ago. It's not like the movies where you make your phone call and presto change-o you're out in minutes.

xpost 2024 election
2020's election
2016's election even though he won
all midterms
the court system, which has an Anti-Trump wing
American Idol, Season 3
P.S. 15 (Roberto Clemente) 1991 5th grade spelling bee
Medieval Times joust, 1991

USFL vs. NFL antitrust lawsuit

Grape Nuts cereal

-atoni

gumball machines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBWODsBzdo

google search results (2018, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-attacks-google-claims-prioritizes-fake-news-searches/story?id=57444232)

the Republican Party and its leaders all up and down the line now have a deep vested interest in convincing at least 50% of the nation's voters that the justice system in the USA is thoroughly corrupt and that

trying hunter biden for drug-addiction gun-possession tax-evasion will even the score (and don't you dare bring up how ivanka and jared worked in and profited from the white house!)! MAGA!

he wants SCOTUS to take up his NY conviction, so apparently they're not rigged? or only semi-rigged

or rigged in his favor

so typical of the racist GOP to always be talking about Riggs but never Murtaugh

The Supreme Court cannot adjudicate on a state case, only federal, correct?

his lawyers might try to make some kind of nonsensical constitutional argument just to see if the SCOTUS will take the bait. they will throw whatever they can dream up into the mix, if only to delay and obfuscate the simple clarity of Trump being a convicted felon. since Trump doesn't have to spend his own money for it, he'll be happy to pay as much a necessary to keep stirring the pot.

yeah its all about making noise, when people talk about him being a felon they want the next thought to be "but maybe the trial wasn't fair", they do this shit every time something unequivocally bad happens

I see no grounds where SCOTUS would take this up, except that a couple of them 'owe him a favor'

Constitutional considerations are secondary. The Supreme Court will take up whatever bullshit appeal they come up with not for Trump but because it will allow them to make the Republican Party not the ones who nominated a convicted felon for President.

he could totally raise some federal questions but he has to work the system and appeal

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/01/ive-never-seen-that-legal-scholars-say-has-opening-to-turn-to-for-help/

Alito & Thomas would likely sign on to hear any flimsy constitutional argument Trump's lawyers might gin up, but I don't have enough imagination to think of what grounds they could base their case on.

The Supreme Court has increasingly been making law by issuing emergency rulings using the shadow docket.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/supreme-court-shadow-docket

History is weird:

This process, incidentally, gave rise to one of the Court’s more bizarre stories, when in 1970 two lawyers hiked six miles into the woods to request that Justice William O. Douglas temporarily restrain Portland, Oregon policemen from using violent tactics to quell protests. Douglas held an impromptu oral argument and left his decision on a tree stump: application denied. Supreme Court rules now require that all shadow docket applications be submitted to the clerk’s office.

yah that was my next post--didn't post, but he could figure out some federal angle and get them to rule on it. I don't think he has 5 to overturn it though.

i think the messaging has been bad on it. it wasn't hush money==it was paying someone off to influence an election

take from it what you will.. via The Guardian:

The figures were even starker among “double haters” – voters who equally dislike Trump and President Joe Biden – 65% of whom supported the verdict, with two-thirds saying the former president should end his campaign. Pollsters predict the cohort could be a critical component of the swing voter constituency they believe will determine the outcome in November.

(editorial note: it should really be spelled 'haterz')

i think the messaging has been bad on it. it wasn't hush money==it was paying someone off to influence an election

idk I think "hush money to a porn star" does more to degrade the guy than election malfeasance. It resonates more deeply. Not that it was news, but the trial put a big spotlight on it all over again.

Otm

okay cool cool

Speaker Johnson went so far as to say, “This will be overturned guys, there’s no question about it.” (It would be extraordinarily bizarre for the Supreme Court to somehow overturn a criminal conviction under state law outside of the appeals process in New York courts.)

This year is managing to be easily more stressful than anticipated in varying ways, well done

It's not so much bizarre as so underused that it would be tragically unfair to use it in this criminal case, and not the reams of more deserving convictions.

Sad that the entire doctrine of habeas corpus appeals (such as stay of execution of death penalty sentences for faulty prosecutions) and collateral attacks in federal court on state court convictions has been so gutted and ignored for so long by the Supreme Court's refusal to vacate clearly unconstitutional state court convictions that there's a perception that this collateral review process is now regarded as bizarre rather than pitifully underused.

xp

as I see it, the caveat is outside of the appeals process in New York.. his team have not yet filed an appeal in NY courts but he wants SCOTUS to jump in do him a solid

SCOTUS is not going to jump in

xp I don't know what that all means felicity. As an interested but ordinary citizen I thought the concept of a conspiracy to falsify business records and skirt tax laws to conceal an attempt at election interference was a pretty compelling concept

I think we agree that Trump's criminal conviction was totally just and fair.

What I was commenting on is that normally a convicted criminal in the state court system has to exhaust the state court appeals process before applying for relief in the federal courts, under a collateral attack, which could be the lead to Supreme Court review, which is discretionary.

Then, my post about the shadow docket was to highlight that conversative justices have used the shadow docket as a workaround to shape the law in nefarious ways, a procedure that is less known because it doesn't follow the typical process of full briefing and arguments.

What I last commented on was what I perceived as as erosion in actually using the collateral attack in federal courts on wrongful state court convictions (to be clear, the Trump conviction is not wrongful) to such an extent that people may have forgotten that this was a thing that used to be done, and often on a large scale.

Either way, he can't pursue federal intervention until going through state appeals, right? Or is there a mechanism to make some kind of federal filing outside of state appeal?

So-called emergency motions, which is why the shadow docket is so contentious.

Second — and this is a more recent change — the justices have begun to issue far more rulings, and more significant rulings, through the shadow docket. Today, the justices grant relief in contentious shadow docket cases twice as often as they did just a few years ago. The surge in issuing this relief has coincided with Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joining the Court.

Put simply, the Court is making more significant decisions through the shadow docket while having reduced the robustness of the decision-making process.

The Court has used the shadow docket to rule on issues including gerrymandering, pandemic rules, environmental regulation, and (as described above) abortion. Many of its high profile uses of the shadow docket have involved so-called emergency motions, which often seek to suspend or reverse lower court orders while a case is still in progress. This is supposed to be a rare action, limited to situations in which the lower court rulings could cause irreparable harm if allowed to stand. Critics, however, argue that the Supreme Court is granting relief when the applicant has not truly demonstrated irreparable harm, effectively deciding cases at too early a stage in the litigation, and with a lack of transparency and participation from affected parties.

One frequently cited example is Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, in which the justices struck down New York’s capacity restrictions on religious services due to Covid-19. The Supreme Court’s intervention reversing the lower courts that had allowed the restrictions to stand appeared particularly unusual since the attendance limits were no longer in effect and could not cause harm.

Another example came when the justices reinstated Alabama’s gerrymandered Congressional map after lower courts had ruled that the plan discriminated against Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The result is that those maps will be in effect for at least the 2022 election. Only two justices in the majority (Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito) provided any reasons for their decision.

Louisiana v. American Rivers was another controversial use of the shadow docket. In its waning days, the Trump administration issued a regulation preventing states from blocking infrastructure projects that could contaminate rivers, lakes, and streams. When a federal judge vacated the Trump rule and restored the states’ powers, the Supreme Court stepped in on behalf of fossil fuel interests, reinstating the administration’s rule without citing evidence or providing an explanation of how the lower court order threatened irreparable harm.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative jurist, raised eyebrows when he joined the Supreme Court’s liberals in dissenting from that ruling. In that dissent, Justice Elena Kagan lamented that the Court had gone “astray,” rendering “the Court’s emergency docket not for emergencies at all.” Rather, the shadow docket had become “only another place for merits determinations — except made without full briefing and argument.”

Using the shadow docket for nonemergency but monumental decisions runs counter to the tenets of transparency and the rule of law. As many legal scholars have observed, the justices’ usual process of waiting for lower courts to establish facts and weigh in on cases, receiving full briefing, holding oral argument, and providing detailed explanations of their orders, is a key source of the Court’s legitimacy.

So, when the justices increasingly render decisions affecting more and more Americans in a manner that precipitously resolves constitutional or statutory questions with little to no reasoning given, they feed the perception that their rulings are predicated on political ideology rather than judicial principles.