Closing Arguments Today as GOP Scrambles to Learn How Trials Work
May 28: Trump closing arguments … Biden eyes Rafah “red line” … Storms kill 22 … Libertarian presidential nominee …
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Both sides are expected to make their closing arguments today in what could lead to the first conviction of a former president on criminal charges and also the last conviction of a former president on criminal charges if the originalists on the Supreme Court rule that the founding fathers meant to say that laws don’t apply to presidents.
Tomorrow, Judge Juan Merchan is expected to give instructions to the jury of New Yorkers as to what the charges against D4FRFP1 Donald Trump mean and how the jury is supposed to deliberate whether Trump’s obviously totally fucking guilty just look at his somehow simultaneously pinched and bloated angry mushy grapefruit of a face.
After they get the case, the jury may submit written questions to the court, for instance, asking the judge to explain technical legal issues or why a defendant might take naps.
Trump has said he never had sex with Stormy Daniels and didn’t seek to conceal payments for keeping her quiet as part of his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified otherwise. Paying money to help his campaign but reporting it as a business expense would have prevented voters from learning about all of Trump’s campaign’s expenses as required by law even if you’re rich.
Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — normally a misdemeanor, but when it’s done with intent to break more laws, it’s a felony. (The concept of elevating charges when the predicate crime was committed with additional criminal intent, by the way, is an old one that gets used against non-Trump people every day.)
If convicted, and if prosecutors ask for it, Trump could get serious jail time, as much as four years for each count.
Trump and other Republicans yesterday expressed shock and horror upon learning how the U.S. criminal justice system works. In a Memorial Day post, Trump rose to honor America’s fallen in past wars — and by “fallen” he meant him and by “past wars” he meant his court cases — by voicing disbelief at how the system they died to defend works.
First, Trump’s mind was blown that E. Jean Carroll could sue him twice just because he defamed her more than once. He was also outraged that his business was prosecuted for fraud under a law he said has never been used before, even though everyone knows laws are never supposed to be used a first time.
Then Trump freaked out to discover that prosecutors present their closing arguments last. “Why can’t the defense go last? Big advantage, very unfair,” Trump complained, as he never did once for any of the tens of thousands of defendants subjected to the exact same thing while he was inconceivably actual president. (Hilariously, one of Trump’s biggest regrets of his time in office was his modest attempt to make the criminal-justice system slightly less horrific.)
Also freaking out at newfound revelations about American justice was longtime right-wing mouth-flapper Byron York, of Fox and the Washington Examiner. York wrote yesterday how shocked he is that New York law allows for felony charges when a misdemeanor is committed with intent to violate another law.
York, a newborn criminal-justice reformer who is now soft on crime, wrote, “The other crime? Need not have been committed for Trump to be convicted. Just intended.”
The right wing’s concern for defendants evolved gradually after decades of railing to throw poor people of color into prison for the rest of their lives, and then really suddenly once their sex symbol was charged. (Congressional Democrats now have plenty of ammunition to pursue real criminal-justice reform and tip the scales toward defendants even a tiny bit…if they’re not too busy putting together their law-and-order political campaigns…)
The New York jury could agree that the justice system is uniquely unjust toward rich, white, powerful men and acquit Trump. It could also convict him or end in a hung jury. Another possibility is that Merchan could issue a directed verdict, essentially concluding that we don’t need to waste everyone’s time given the obviousness of Trump’s guilt (or, in theory, his not-guilt…it could happen, people!)
Biden Weighing Whether Killing 45 People Counts as Crossing His “Red Line”
With 45 people dead in Sunday’s Israeli airstrike on Rafah, Pres. Joe Biden reportedly is weighing whether that counts as violating the “red line” he warned would cause him to stop sending some of the offensive weaponry Israel has been using offensively.
Biden last month said the U.S. would stop such shipments if the Israeli army went into Rafah population centers. On the other hand, once the military goes in, they’re not really population centers anymore, now are they?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday called the airstrike a mistake, but look, I mean, Netanyahu’s got 35,000 problems, but mistakes ain’t one. Israel reportedly was targeting two Hamas leaders…or lead-ish-ers…with precision weaponry…which killed precisely 45 people and wounded precisely 249.
Netanyahu called the deaths “a tragic accident,” the kind that could happen to anyone of us if we were also using a vast artificial intelligence system to generate wholesale target lists and launching an all-out military campaign that we had weeks to prepare.
The strike came less than two months after Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed relief workers with World Central Kitchen, which an IDF spokesperson also called “a tragic accident.” In December, the IDF shot and killed three Israelis who had escaped Hamas after being held hostage in what the IDF called “a tragic accident.”
Taken together, the incidents present mounting evidence that Israel’s military is running desperately short of precision-guided writers capable of hitting on fresh terms for killing people who aren’t Hamas.
Netanyahu also accused Hamas of hiding among civilians — which, yeah — and said Israel urged civilians to flee ahead of the Rafah offensive. Which doesn’t exactly address the whole “hiding among civilians” thing, especially given that Hamas reportedly has been able to re-emerge in areas Israel previously said were cleared. Which, yeah.
Netanyahu’s latest tragically accidental “My B” came just after the International Court of Justice warned Israel not to have any tragic accidents in Rafah. The offensive in Rafah has now driven away hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and much of Europe: Ireland, Norway, and Spain this morning formalized their decisions to recognize Palestine as its own sovereign nation.
Trump Strategy Leads to Iran Nuclear Progress
Who says D4FRFP Donald Trump didn’t promote manufacturing when he was president? Since Trump ended the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, that nation’s nuclear program has been booming. (Ed. note: Poor word choice.)
According to a confidential U.N. report obtained yesterday by the A.P., Iran has stepped up manufacturing of enriched uranium since Trump killed the deal. The report by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says that Iran now has 13,671.5 pounds of enriched uranium (“enriched” meaning some of it is the fun 235 isotope, not the boring 238 isotope).
Iran’s uranium is only 60% enriched, but reportedly it’s not that tough to get to 90%, the level needed for that whole “boom” thing. Which is exactly the kind of context the A.P. provides to ensure you’re freaking out by now, even though Iran says the nuclear material is being enriched for energy production.
It’s worth noting that Iran now already has far more than the amount needed to build a bomb — meaning, apparently, they could have but haven’t. Which is exactly the kind of context TFN provides to ensure you’re not freaking out by now.
It’s also worth noting that (a) Pakistan has had nukes for years and (b) Iran’s leaders aren’t suicidal and (c) fear of WMDs has caused more deaths than actual WMDs have.
Storms Kill at Least 22 People
Tornadoes and other extreme weather killed 22 people, destroyed homes, and left hundreds of thousands without power in a broad swath of states on Memorial Day, the day when America honors those who died in combat. Those combat deaths include tens of thousands of U.S. troops post-World War II who never returned after being deployed thousands of miles away to defend us from foes who weren’t attacking us instead of staying here to defend us from the American captains of industry whose climate change contributed to the deaths of 22 people yesterday.
Waaay More Than Anyone Asked for About the Libertarian Party Convention
D4FRFP Donald Trump got all the attention from the Libertarian Party National Convention this weekend for drawing boos, but there’s more going on here. Let’s get the Trump bullshit out of the way, though.
The booing Libertarians appear to have found the key to making Trump forgo the windbaggery. He fled the stage after only 34 minutes, reportedly one of his shortest speeches so far.
Trump was obviously flummoxed by the challenge of appealing to a group of people motivated by actual principles other than self-interest, even if they are principles cherished most fondly by young men still in the throes of hormonal flash flooding and brain plasticity. But Trump plunged ahead, anyway, seeking first their nomination, then — giving up on that prospect — pitching for individual votes (“...at least vote for me…”).
At first, Trump tried to run the same con that worked on evangelicals: Selling himself as one of them.
But without even one Corinthian to offer, when Trump tried telling the convention delegates he’s a Libertarian: Boo! He tried selling a cabinet position. Boo! He tried selling a presidential commutation for Silk Road founder and Libertarian sex idol Ross Ulbricht. Boo! (Actually Trump got cheers for the non-Trump things — Ulbricht and the cabinet — but someone did yell out “Panderer!” Sick burn!)
Trump tried scaring them with Communism. Boo! He tried scaring them with socialism. Boo! He tried scaring them with Crooked Joe Biden:
Trump was unable to use his favorite tactic of subduing his targets, because you can’t grab an entire political party by the pussy, especially given the lack thereof in a party dominated by man-babies. The same dynamic ruled out calling the Libertarian Party lesbians, the usual tactic favored by rejected men.
And, because businessmen are sooo competent, it turns out Trump didn’t even file the proper paperwork to get the nomination.
As for the booing, the booers would have been harmonizing with noise-making rubber-chickens, except Trump’s Secret Service detail seized the chickens for some cursed, befucked reason having nothing to do with their taxpayer-funded duties.
So who beat Trump for the nomination?
Meet Chase Oliver! Oliver cobbled together a winning collective of delegates by pledging to best represent their core principle that nothing should be done via collective action. They will now all join forces to work together to promote the party’s campaign of staunch individualism.
The new Libertarian Party presidential nominee is as of now the only person ever to defeat both Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who, yes, also sought the nomination.
I don’t wanna get your hopes up too high — Chase is in some ways your typical caricature of a Libertarian, except in the ways he’s really, wildly not. So let’s start with the predictable and dumb stuff about him and work our way up to predictable but not insane and all the way to shocking, shall we?
Predictable and dumb:
Would abolish the Dept. of Education
Would fight inflation by balancing the federal budget
Opposes gun control even though guns take away people’s freedoms by carving them up inside
Harry Potter fan (don’t @ me, people; I read those books and good writing it ain’t)
Fan of other YA wizards, such as the Invisible Hand that’s gonna fix climate change
Predictable but not insane:
Anti-U.S. involvement in foreign wars, including ones we start
Pro-choice (but not with federal funding)
Shocking:
Calls Trump “a war criminal.”
Anti-qualified immunity for criminal cops
Anti-Cop City (the militarized-police behemoth being forced on Atlanta)
The shock comes from the contrast between Oliver’s positions and the Libertarian Party’s right-wing affiliations. David Koch was their vice presidential nominee back in 1980.
Oliver’s non-eye-roll positions, however, make it less likely that him being on the ballot will hurt Trump. Oliver ran for Senate in 2022 in Georgia, drawing enough votes to stop anyone from topping 50% and forcing a runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Herschel Walker (Georgia actual sweartogodlookitup Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate).
Without Oliver taking 2.07% of the vote, Warnock jumped from 49.44% in the general to 51.4% in the runoff, while Walker barely moved from 48.49% to 48.6%. Virtually all of Oliver’s voters, in other words, voted Democratic with Oliver out.
Still, it’s far from clear that most voters nationwide will be aware of Chase’s positions in this year’s general election. While Georgia voters in that race may have had a better idea of who Oliver is, it just might be that voters nationally who will never vote for Biden might see “Libertarian” on the ballot and think it’s the Koch-style Libertarianism of the good ol’ good ole boy days.
TCB
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D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.
But did you HAVE to remind me that Byron York exists?
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