Saturday Report 6/1/24 - Trump is the first Prez in history convicted of a felony...
The Best of the Rest of the News
— First Prez convicted of a Felony in history... At a Reno, Nevada campaign rally in 2016, Donald Trump said of Hillary Clinton, “We could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.” He elaborated at a campaign rally in Concord, North Carolina, saying: “If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented Constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government. She is likely to be under investigation for many years, and also it will probably end up — in my opinion — in a criminal trial. I mean, you take a look. Who knows? But it certainly looks that way.” He added that, because of the possibility she could become a felon, “She has no right to be running, you know that. No right!” Now Trump has been twice found by juries of his peers to have raped a woman, was convicted of fraud with his phony university, busted for running a fake charity and stealing money intended for kids with cancer, and his company was convicted of tax and insurance fraud. With more to come, should the six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court and Florida’s Aileen Cannon ever let his cases proceed. Karma, as the old saying goes, can be a bitch…
— Chief Justice John Roberts — whose wife has taken over $10 million from law firms doing business with the Supreme Court — has told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin to go screw himself and his questions of members of the Supreme Court being on the take. Roberts claims that such a meeting would violate “the separation of powers.” Somebody should read Article 3, Section II of the Constitution to him: “[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” They should probably also read it to Durbin, who seems totally cowed by Roberts, Alito, and Thomas.
— Why are Republicans fighting to keep America defenseless against the next pandemic? The World Health Organization (WHO) has put together a new treaty having to do with pandemics and public health that would allow for countries to transparently share information about outbreaks of new diseases in real time. The data would include where, when, and DNA samples so diagnostic systems and vaccines can be developed. But, for some inexplicable reason, Republican Congressmen Jim Jordan and Thomas Massey are fighting to prevent the US from signing it. They say it would infringe on rightwinger’s “free speech rights”; apparently they’re afraid the data of a coming pandemic might lead to another mask mandate, which terrorizes them. Sick. Literally.
— Biden will allow Ukraine to use weapons for strikes in Russia! This is very big and very good news: Ukraine can now use US weaponry, on a limited basis, to strike staging areas in Russia being used to bomb Ukrainian villages. President Biden signed the authorization last week and it went into effect this past Thursday. Good on him!
— Trump repeatedly used the N-word when filming the Apprentice show. One of the show’s producers’ NDA just expired and he’s telling the stories he’d been gagged about for decades. When it looked like Kwame Jackson, a Black man, might walk away with the prize in one episode, Trump said, “Would America buy a n*****r winning?” The staff was shocked — and the producer says it was filmed — but apparently this wasn’t uncommon. Trump also routinely trash-talked women he thought were overweight or unattractive and demanded that the floor directors and camera operators closest to him be blue-eyed blonds. The more we learn about this pig the uglier he seems.
— Hunter in a Farmer’s Alert! ADHD: Our Culture is Increasingly Intolerant of “Different” People:
— Wisdom School Alert! Costa Rica: A Haven for Social Democracy and a Blue Zone:
A whistleblower alleges that Jane Roberts, wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, has made over $10 million recruiting for elite law firms, .... Two immunity cases still pending. The only way to get a justice to respond is for a party, i.e. DOJ, to file emergency motions to recuse accompanied by affidavits -- testimony from potential witness that invoke bias. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000186-0e0c-df27-abcf-8f6da8b00000
Dozens of witnesses to the largesse of Lennie Leo. Other judges, other participants. Same for other alleged corruptors. Harlan Crow. The membership of the Federalist society. The various and sundry law firms populated by lawyers placed by Mrs Roberts who successfully argued SCOTUS cases.
DOJ needs to ask for an immediate hearing as there are criminal aspects involved.
Meanwhile, DOJ can issue subpoenas to witnesses as to alleged bribery and perjury. Leo. Crow. Mrs. Roberts (what does she know about Thomas, Alito, et al and when did she know it?) Eastman. Mrs. Thomas. Mrs Alito. Former law clerks.
Someone close to me felt it necessary to express delighted astonishment at the fact that the guilty verdict caused tfg to receive the largest amount of single day donations in history, predominantly from small donors. When I replied how sad I was about the rejection of the rule of law that entailed, and the embrace of the most despicable creature ever to be POTUS, I received a huge blast back. This person, an excellent appellate lawyer and former judge, told me I had no idea how criminal law worked, how judges were results oriented,and how ai was disrespecting the half of the country supporting tfg. Not knowing I should keep my mouth shut, I responded that I was quite sure SCOTUS would ultimately exonerate him. The response was that I assumed the first levels of appeals courts would affirm, I said they usually did with jury verdicts absent egregious error. Then I was told my assumption about SCOTUS showed my liberal bias, to which I pled guilty. Digging a deeper hole, I reminded this person that another demagogue who had been imprisoned won an election once, a century ago, and was beloved of the wealthy and the working people of his country. And that sixty million people died as a result. My conversationalist was not deterred, responding that tfg was not great, but President Biden was the real demagogue, propounded of hate, racist, etc. I was told that I was just an uninformed, irrational elitist.
The hell I inhabit. Doomed to spend my (hopefully very few) remaining years in a sharp,y divided family, with two right wingers, four from far left to left center (including me), and one too small to be bothered yet, thank heavens. But the conversation deeply troubled me. I have a very hard time living in a country where so many support tfg. Having some people so close to me who do is as near to being in Hell as I ever want to get. That the example of my own life, which I have spent fighting for and in some instances obtaining recognition of the rights of minorities, the dispossessed, the poor, and my own academic and professional accomplishments, should have failed to persuade some in my family about things so obviously true and right to me is the my greatest disappointment and defeat. It is not their fault, and I will love them until I depart. It is the fault of the media, some of the disappointments in their own lives, and the malign influence of other friends of theirs over which I have had no control. I am reduced to once again reflecting on the truth, for me of my favorite Stephen Crane poem, “In the Desert”:
“In the desert, I saw a creature
Naked and bestial.
He held his heart in his hands and ate of it.
‘Is it good, friend”, I asked.
‘It is bitter, bitter,’ he said.
‘But I like it, because it is bitter.
And because it is my heart.”
Continue to keep the faith and fight the fight, Mr. Hartmann. You and others in the Bulwark whom I follow help keep me going and committed to striving for what is good, and decent, and just, and true, until I am relieved of the burdens of my ultimately disappointing life.