In a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, only 16 percent of respondents said they were following the trial very closely, with an additional 32 percent following it “somewhat” closely. “Those numbers rank as some of the lowest for any recent news event,” wrote Yahoo News’s Andrew Romano. When people were asked how the trial made them feel, the most common response was “bored.”...
A hopeful possibility... is that a guilty verdict will come as a shock to many Americans who have checked out of the news cycle, perhaps giving them pause about putting a criminal in the White House. I wouldn’t count on it, though.
I wouldn't count on it either. People already have their idea of whether or not Trump is a criminal, and if the jury doesn't agree with them, they'll be outraged at the jury.
There's no "if he was a felon" here. Goldberg is writing as if people see the jury as conveying or withholding the status "felon." I doubt if that's how voters are experiencing this. The jury will attempt to get to an answer to the question whether the prosecution has met its burden of proof and that will have legal consequences. But most people will go by their own preexisting opinion. Goldberg half-recognizes this:
... if recent history is any guide, a vast majority of his supporters will easily rationalize away a conviction. Trump’s minions are already working hard to discredit the proceedings, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling the trial “corrupt” and a “sham.”...
Goldberg doesn't mention that Trump opponents "will easily rationalize away" an acquittal. She does acknowledge that if the jury finds Trump guilty, he will appeal and "there’s little chance that he’ll be incarcerated before Election Day."
The hoped-for climax is sure to be crushed, but why pre-crush it? I think there was an effort to gin up excitement over seeing Trump in jail and incapacitated for the remainder of the campaign season, but the unseemly slavering did not ensue. People are not paying attention. So we get a column that ends:
It’s not surprising, then, that most people are tuning out the twists and turns of the trial. Whether Trump truly gets his comeuppance is up to the voters, not the jury.
So go ahead and look away, people. Don't soul-search about whether it was an abysmal mistake to use the criminal process to defeat Trump.
Posts
94 comments:
The Judge is a corrupt hack.
Will he get his way as a loyal puppet of the regime?
Of course, it's not going the way they wanted and in hindsight it's looking like a bad choice. Even hyper partisans like CNN sound unconvinced when they trot out the "the walls are closing in" schtick. At this point any positive spin you hears is just self-comfort for the Left.
no earth shattering kaboom oh no anyways
So happy to have not been following or paying attention to any of this. It’s a spectacle for media elites and politics nerds.
A disappointing fizzle. Time to finally run the Alito flag story.
Trump supporters are tuned in, for Biden supporters it matters not. The lefties are voting for the party. The mushy middle is what counts.
Twelve (12) book deals await the jury pool, unless there is a recalcitrant juror who votes not-guilty. He/she will be hounded.
"I think there was an effort to gin up excitement over seeing Trump in jail and incapacitated for the remainder of the campaign season,…"
…by the same people who yammer on about "our democracy.". These people appear to be incapable of seeing themselves for who they truly are.
Blame The West Wing. Ace of Spades once referred to it as the "MacGuffinization of Politics" where everything becomes about the heroic narrative of the people involved. Basically, in the same way that The West Wing was about the people working in the White House, and the issues were only a vehicle for the personal drama, the left has turned Trump into a grand story in which they are the heroes. It doesn't matter what he may or may not have done, what matters is The Narrative. The problem is that it is increasingly in conflict with reality, and that leads to disappointment.
If a con law prof can't figure out why he's going to be a felon, what hope do 'voters' have?
She is really articulating the reason lefties are panicked- they aren't getting away with the bullshit narratives they did last cycle. Even their own people have figured it out.
At some point each leftie rat needs to decide for themselves to flee the sinking ship or go down with it.
It's like they were promised chocolate fudge cake, vanilla bean ice cream and a double espresso and they end up getting cottage cheese with pineapple and a Luke warm cup of Sanka.
Look for the jurors’ identities to be accidentally revealed in the next few days.
which/who have more gravitas
Hamas student-faculty-collegePresidents protest[ers] / Trump tribulators
A friend pointed out to me last month that the in person polling question "Would you still vote for Trump if he was convicted of a felony?" is probably the equivalent of the 2016 "Would you vote for Trump?"
Why are Joe Biden and the crooks in the Democratic Party to blame for this farce? I think these cases were inevitable. The prosecutor's office is seen as a stepping stone for higher office. Somebody, somewhere, a man or a woman with boundless ambition was going to take on Trump, win and then run for President.
Prosecutors are too political and too powerful and have almost no formal constraints on their stupid decisions. This is not good for our political system. Why should a city with 250,000 people hold an election in an off year on a Tuesday with ten thousand or so voters showing up, elect a garbage Soros prosecutor who then engages in "criminal justice reform." These bastards released released tens of thousands of rapists and murderers and caused tremendous suffering. This is so much bullsh*t. We should stop electing prosecutors or somehow forbid them from seeking higher office.
Lowering expectations and changing goalposts is always the sign of a fair, impartial judicial process and a sound, balanced political strategy.
Listening to documented fabricator and fraud Michelle Goldberg was your first mistake.
They chose to stay with Biden. To feel better about that decision, they either need Trump in jail or Biden to die. Imagine having that as your view, and then what they are hoping to occur makes sense.
If you actually believe in democracy, none of this makes sense. You have a primary. Use it to challenge candidates rather than anoint them. If you fail to use your primary, don’t rely on the courts or death to solve your poor decision making.
"a guilty verdict will come as a shock to many Americans who have checked out of the news cycle, perhaps giving them pause about putting a criminal in the White House."
I have to confess- I haven't been following this trial or the other 27 (or is it 56) where the government is trying to imprison Trump. Have they announced what he's to be found guilty of this time yet?
A hopeful possibility... is that a guilty verdict will come as a shock to many Americans who have checked out of the news cycle, perhaps giving them pause about putting a criminal in the White House.
The inverse does not occur to her: That Americans will be shocked at the Left - cheered on by the media industry - criminalizing political opponents.
"If a con law prof can't figure out why he's going to be a felon...."
What does it mean to "be a felon"? I question whether that's the way to speak.
It's not considered appropriate anymore to call people "illegal immigrants." They are people who are in the country illegally, but that is not the whole of who they are.
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
DNC hardest hit.
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
Some things are just 'too important' to possess humanity...
It is hard to imagine a decent, intelligent human being thinking this trial is remotely fair.
For that matter, it is difficult to imagine a decent, intelligent human being would believe anyone would be prosecuted for this nebulous "crime" if it was not Trump being specifically targeted. Yet Michelle Goldberg's concern is if he is wrongfully convicted, people will "rationalize" the conviction as unfair, despite it obviously being unfair and corrupt by any reasonable standard.
I leave my opinion of Michelle as an exercise for the reader.
I'm reading "anticlimactic" as a broken promise.
Mind Reading: 'You lured me in to watch this movie and now it seems you are not going to deliver the ending I want.'
Can Goldberg articulate what the crime is? Because it seems like the D.A. can’t.
I thought “honest Don” couldn’t wait to testify and clear his name. He’s been telling us for weeks that he would do so.
And watch him spin this to his base by saying he wasn't allowed to testify. He will then play the victim. Then Fox news will amplify it. Then it will become fact in MAGA world. Rinse, repeat.
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
Yes, an opinion apparently not shared by Ms. Goldberg. The DNC Media are salivating at the opportunity of adding the preamble "Convicted felon" to Trump's name. Even if we never learn what that mystery felony is. The opportunities will be legion: FELON HOLDS RALLY, BIDEN DEBATES FELON, FELON ARRIVES AT COURT FOR NEXT HEARING...
In this trial, it's the preclimax that matters--the persecution process, the judicial torture, the Dem election interference.
Agree with CJinPA…. It’s only anticlimactic if you completely ignore the Judge’s rulings which have stomped all over due process, free speech, the right to a full statement of the offense and the right to a full and vigorous defense.
Also - I think that we agreed that “illegal immigrant’ is an acceptable term, because that is the name of the crime that was committed, much like a murderer is one who has murdered another person. That targeted person, btw, is a murder victim - also not the whole of who they were.
Who said it was Hack Tuesday?
Goldberg is a horrible example of humanity.
The witch hunt conceived as a political plot, has progressed slowly, tortuously, and, after several trimesters, is likely to birth a viable candidate. Meow.
Ann Althouse said...
"If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
They're already calling him that, at least the noisiest social media commenters and meme factories. I think it's a corollary to Alinsky Rule #13:
"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
Once the target has been polarized, depersonalization is easy.
None of this really matters. The only thing that really matters is the absentee voter fraud. Can they pull it off again in 2024 like they did in 2020?
We'll know in six months. Clean election. Trump wins.
If they pull off another fraudulent election, over half of America will have lost all faith in the justice system, the courts, judges...and the value of their vote. Good times.
It’s like going to Boston with expectations of enjoying some world-class clam chowder, having a bowl and realizing the chowder you’d tasted at the Cracker Barrel in Bakersfield was much tastier in comparison.
The Trump trial (and all the other Democrat attempts at lawfare) are a meadow muffin. The verdict, whatever it is, will be dropped in the meadow and steam for a while. And the lawfare effort will either be seen for what it is by the percipient, or mourned by the Dim unwashed.
The problem is that the persecution has never articulated the underlying felony which justified the elevation of the misdemeanors to felonies.
“If a con law prof can't figure out why he's going to be a felon...."
What does it mean to "be a felon"? I question whether that's the way to speak.
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
So…you insist on being called “a person who used to be a professor of Constitutional law” rather than a “con law prof”? Sorry, but I’ll accept some diminishment of my humanity for the sake of concision in my writing.
I wouldn't count on it either. People already have their idea of whether or not Trump is a criminal, and if the jury doesn't agree with them, they'll be outraged at the jury.
Yes. Thanks to Judge Merchan’s outrageous behavior, Stormy Daniels’s bizarre testimony, and, most importantly, the testimony of Michael Cohen under cross examination that he stole from Donald Trump, it seems clear that Trump has won his case in the court of public opinion. And when it comes to elections, that’s what counts.
Plus there’s something else. Althouse probably doesn’t see this because she lives in Madison and because she’s a law professor, but there’s a sense of fairness inside Normal folk. Life isn’t fair, we all get that, but our institutions ought to strive to be fair, however challenging that may be to achieve in practice. Then we learn that the FBI under Jack Smith’s leadership (deliberately?) mishandled evidence from the Mar-a-Largo raid. And, according to all reports, Judge Merchan does his best to disallow testimony from Trump’s defense witnesses. Letitia James, working hand in glove with corrupt Judge Engoron sets out to criminalize what is clearly normal business practice. Is any of this fair?
I predict the jury comes back after 4 hours if Merchan doesn't dismiss the charges- guilty. If deliberations go more than a day, then there are 2 or more holdouts (a single holdout will fold within 6-8 hours just from jury pressure). After a day, the names of the holdouts will appear in the media with campouts on their doorsteps.
How I assign the 100%:
(1) Jury convicts on day 1 of deliberations-75%
(2) Jury convicts on day 2 or 3- 20%
(3) Jury hangs- 4%
(4) Jury acquits 1%.
And I am being generous with (4). This is a NYC jury full of Trump-haters- guaranteed- given such a juror, it would take one with spotless ethics to vote for acquittal and my observation of progressives is that they have almost no ethics whatsoever.
Ann Althouse:
What does it mean to "be a felon"? I question whether that's the way to speak.
It's not considered appropriate anymore to call people "illegal immigrants."
Since when are invaders called immigrants?
They are people who are in the country illegally, but that is not the whole of who they are.
The first part is the definition of "illegal alien". It's actually called that in law.
As to the second:
John Wayne Gacy was a demented serial killer but that wasn't the whole of him. He also wore clown outfits painted pictures!
He was still a f'n demented killer and they're still illegal aliens.
Yeah, yeah, the old west. Pretty sure the natives viewed it as invasion.
Flag for convo on equivalencies.
Not sure how many more Republicans need to retire prior to the election and after they can be replaced for the Democrats to be able to take over the House and pass a law excluding Trump from office based on his participation in an "insurrection" for which he will not have to be convicted in a court based on actual evidence or any clear definition of the term itself.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"If a con law prof can't figure out why he's going to be a felon...."
What does it mean to "be a felon"? I question whether that's the way to speak.
It's not considered appropriate anymore to call people "illegal immigrants." They are people who are in the country illegally, but that is not the whole of who they are.
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
Lol. That’s good. I see what you did there.
Ah, I see what she did there.
Trump...anticlimax...whole affair.
She's the worst of the bunch and that's saying something.
I think the term they are looking for is "a ruined orgasm".
Hoisted by their own Fani, they no longer Bragg in gay parade.
In several polls, small but significant shares of Trump supporters..
name TWO that won't? Name one? Naming Chuck don't count
Whether Trump truly gets his comeuppance is up to the voters, not the jury.
This is the salient point by the writer.
The implied belief that Trump deserves a comeuppance is the unifying theme of all MSM, Democrat partisan, and GOPe. The how, no longer matters. The need is there and the means is irrelevant. Burn the house down; as long as Trump is damaged, it's all good.
Smilin' Jack said...
“So…you insist on being called “a person who used to be a professor of Constitutional law” rather than a “con law prof”? Sorry, but I’ll accept some diminishment of my humanity for the sake of concision in my writing.”
I don’t have a blue pen. I have a pen that releases blue ink.
It identifies as a black pen, though.
TEH WALLS ARE CLOSING IN !!!!
Just not on Trump.
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon
i'm assuming this new "rule" applies only to Trump (and not to him, either) ?
IF someone commits a murder, can we still call them a murderer?
If some drives drunk, can we still call them a drunk driver?
How about..
If your wife finds out your f*cking the babysitter; and commits suicide by running a stopsign and driving into a truck..
Can we still refer to the truck driver as "someone that drank his lunch" ??
for THAT matter..
Can we still call him a truck driver? or (according to Althouse*) must we refer to him as:
someone with a license to drive a truck
???
Professor Althouse*.. Please give us assistance with Your new, and completely arbitrary rule
Althouse* I'm sorry, i guess we're supposed to refer to you now as someone with the name Althouse?
What's the OED definition of felon?
The hoped-for climax is sure to be crushed, but why pre-crush it?
This article feels a bit like battlefield prep. It gets people who were hoping for a Trump conviction and then a deus-ex-machina-like solution to their worries about the 2024 election emotionally primed to not be overly disappointed with a bad result. Also it might help sway people who have negative feelings about the trial being brought in the first place. It is hard to convince a person who thinks the trial is politically motivated and wrong to take the opposite position that the trial is just and a righteous pursuit of justice, but those people might be swayed to take an orthogonal position of apathy. If no one else really cares about he trial and they are bored maybe you shouldn't care about it that much either?
“Not sure how many more Republicans need to retire prior to the election and after they can be replaced for the Democrats to be able to take over the House and pass a law excluding Trump from office based on his participation in an "insurrection" for which he will not have to be convicted in a court based on actual evidence or any clear definition of the term itself.”
Don’t see that working, though I can see them trying. That’s the sort of thing that could result in gun safes across Red America being unlocked, and the next right wing protest at the Capital being heavily armed, instead of unarmed, as it was on 1/6/2021. Also note, that under current jurisprudence, that sort of thing would violate Due Process, as well as potentially other parts of the Bill of Rights, since it would deprive Trump of a civil right without such. It would also require flipping at least 2 seats of the Supreme Court, either through intimidation or assassination, and the latter would likely mean open season on Dem politicians voting for it, and could be esp dire for those in Red states. And, yes, there are those on the left who want this.
The thing that worries me though, at least as much, is their proposal to strip Presidential candidates of Secret Service protection, if convicted of a felony. All the inconvenient (because several can’t be refilled until the election) Republican House retirements are extremely suspicious. It just doesn’t happen that way normally, but it did. My suspicion is that they were somehow bribed, or maybe threatened. Why would the Dems want to strip Trump of Secret Service protection? The logical guess, I think, is that they expect him to be assassinated.
Althouse said: "It's not considered appropriate anymore to call people "illegal immigrants." They are people who are in the country illegally, but that is not the whole of who they are."
No, but it's the only reason we are talking about them. By this logic you can't call anyone anything, whether doctor, lawyer, or indian chief it is never all that they are. The only reason it isn't considered appropriate to call illegal aliens illegal aliens these days is because our so-called betters want to obscure the problem and make it difficult for their opponents to talk about it.
"because our so-called betters want to obscure the problem and make it difficult for their opponents to talk about it."
The left specializes in destroying the meaning of words for this specific purpose.
Ann Althouse said...
If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon."
5/21/24, 10:16 AM
I certainly hope your past smugness will be of some comfort when you hear rifle shots in your nice neighborhood. The Founders started a revolution over much less than this sub-Freisler judicial farce. When a felonious Jewish attorney can secretly tape his clients and steal from them before becoming the "star" witness against them in a trial, the USA has lower standards than Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
As my alcoholic next door neighbor, a Bawlmer native, in my 100% white Baltimore suburb said, back when the OJ Trial was wrapping up, "If they find him NOT guilty, I'm gonna burn this whole place down." I sense the same sort of off-kilter energy about this trial.
Good points, Bruce Hayden. Not sure I'd trust the Secret Service if I were Trump. RFK Jr. is probably being better protected by Gavin De Becker's people.
What percentage of people know that there was an assassination attempt on the Premier of Slovakia (a tragic misunderstanding by somewone upset about a low credit score), of that the President and Foreign Minister of Iran died in a crash (no, the pilot was not "Eli Copter").
A "Murderer" is just someone who murders people, it's not the whole of who they are. A "Rapist" is just some one who rapes people, it's not the whole of who they are. But Illegals are Illegals.
Interesting article in the NYT about whether the Secret Service would protect Trump in prison.
The answer is yes, of course.
(That's a free link).
It would be surreal, of course, but is it possible that the judge sends him to prison if he's convicted?
That would be no more surreal than trying him for crimes in four criminal courts, simultaneously. Nobody gets tried in four courts simultaneously!
Except Trump.
Serial killers who kill women in multiple states don't get tried in four courts, simultaneously. All your other court cases wait for the first one to finish up. That's routine. That's how it is for everybody.
Except Trump.
These are four political prosecutions put forth in an election year to stop Trump from being elected to office. Never seen that before.
We've had the Speaker of the House -- the highest ranking Republican official -- stand out in front of the courthouse and call the trial a sham and a disgrace.
Never seen that before, either!
I think, if the jury finds Trump guilty, before the judge sends him to prison, he ought to consider two things.
One, what is the likelihood that this will result in blowback, and cause Trump's support to increase?
Two, if Trump wins the election, what is the likelihood that officials who tried to stop him from being elected might get prosecuted for tampering with a federal election?
The smart thing to do, of course, is allow Trump to go free while he appeals any conviction.
I'm not convinced the people prosecuting him are smart.
Saint Croix said...
Two, if Trump wins the election, what is the likelihood that officials who tried to stop him from being elected might get prosecuted for tampering with a federal election?
5/21/24, 1:27 PM
His targets are rightly worried that Trump will skip the trials and go right to Second Amendment remedies. And why not? If venal black-robed idiots in the pay of the Epstein types declare you an outlaw, you may as well earn it. In a more civilized age, we learned about Julius Caesar precisely to avoid such recurring problems. Half the people on this site would happily be riflemen for such an effort.
only 16 percent of respondents said they were following the trial very closely, with an additional 32 percent following it “somewhat” closely. “Those numbers rank as some of the lowest for any recent news event,” wrote Yahoo News’s Andrew Romano. When people were asked how the trial made them feel, the most common response was “bored.”...
It's the crime of the century!
What's the crime?
We're not sure.
But it's the crime of the century!
if Trump wins the election, what is the likelihood that officials who tried to stop him from being elected might get prosecuted for tampering with a federal election?
You really think our corrupt, self-serving, insubordinate, seditious, crypto-communist Justice Department would ever do such a thing?
I fully support bold, unprecedented moves to make their lives a living hell if Trump gets back in office, with a view towards driving as many of the malefactors as possible out of government service, but none of them will ever see the inside of a courtroom from the defendant's table. As I've said before, Trump will have the power to single out specific individual conspirators against him by name, and assign them to a new posting in a broom closet in the post office in Minot, North Dakota, and he by God ought to use it.
It might be possible for a brave and ambitious AG in a hardcore Republican state to inflict real harm on some of these scumbags. The Supremacy Clause would probably get in the way of prosecuting those who were on the government tit, but I'd love to see any DNC types or other private citizens who conspired against Trump get raked over the coals in Wyoming or Alabama, with the petty tyrants of the Justice Department and FBI dragged into court as witnesses and unindicted co-conspirators. The discovery process would be most edifying too, and might open the door to a civil action against them by Trump and his fellow victims of the government scum.
“Good points, Bruce Hayden. Not sure I'd trust the Secret Service if I were Trump. RFK Jr. is probably being better protected by Gavin De Becker's people.”
We see the SS at work here, where we live in Las Vegas. They can do things that private security cannot. They are all armed and proficient. Some of them carry machine guns under their coats. There is inevitably three layers of protection around him when he visits: SS, hotel security, and LVMPD. Airspace is restricted. Suspicious cars are opened and inspected. We get the same advance team, and my partner knows some of them now. They always get her up front, and one of them offered us Super Bowl tickets this year. All good guys and gals (the females look like they are weight lifters, but a good part of that is the equipment they are carrying). They all seem very dedicated to him, because he treats them well (something that the Clintons, Obamas, And Bidens seem incapable of, but the Bushes also excelled at). We have been told to expect worse, if he wins (from those who were here working 4 years ago), with snipers on the roofs nearby, and serious traffic problems getting in and out of the place. Maybe worse, the kids get SS protection too, and the two older boys pop in a lot. We may sell, if that is the case.
“Half the people on this site would happily be riflemen for such an effort.”
Naw. I would just get in the way. There are likely at least a million combat trained veteran Trump supporters out there who know much better what to do, and how to do it.
Alan Dershowitz in today's NY Post:
"But in my 60 years as a lawyer and law professor, I have never seen a spectacle such as the one I observed sitting in the front row of the courthouse yesterday. The judge in Donald Trump’s trial was an absolute tyrant, though he appeared to the jury to be a benevolent despot. He seemed automatically to be ruling against the defendant at every turn."
So, I wouldn't hold out much hope for the judge's ruling on jury instructions. The judge doesn't seem to mind showing his bias, or even the likelihood that a guilty verdict will be reversed on appeal. Merchan knows the mission is to influence the election, and everything else is subordinate to that. I guess that's another benefit to the Democrat Party of importing so many citizens of banana republics over the last 50 years; they know the rules.
Journalists do not even pretend they are not Democrat operatives.
venal black-robed idiots in the pay of the Epstein types
Who are the Epstein types?
Trump will skip the trials and go right to Second Amendment remedies.
So in your view, Trump was guilty of armed revolt on January 6? With an unarmed mob?
Half the people on this site would happily be riflemen for such an effort.
You sound like an FBI agent trying to inspire people into crimes!
Half the people on this site would happily be riflemen for such an effort.
Nearly everyone who could contribute to the solution of our current problems in this manner still has too much at stake to do anything crazy like this. In my case, I have an enjoyable and remunerative career, loving wife, wonderful children, an excellent prospect of finally having grandchildren in the next two or three years, a good reputation with a modest degree of social prominence, and more property and investments than I ever imagined possessing. These are not things that are thrown away lightly. I'm very glad I did not take part in the doomed demonstration at the Capitol on 1/6/20 and was also able to talk my hotheaded son out of attending.
In a Zimbabwe-type collapse or North Korean style tyranny, sure, tens of millions of us would open up our gun safes and together excise our oppressors from this plane of existence, but short of a dire emergency, no one wants to be the hero that gets cut down first. Our government has gotten very good at only lightly poaching the frog rather than boiling it. There's a lot of ruin in a nation, as they say. But I get a sense that the unraveling is proceeding faster than the DC swamp can manage.
I've always wondered how the American Revolution was able to draw so many men of wealth and prominence to its cause, at such great peril, over such trifling issues as a 2% tax on tea. A day may come when we all will be forced to look at the ephemerality of our worldly goods and even our lives in the same light as they did.
If Trump returns to the White House next year his most important personnel pick will be Attorney General, followed by FBI director.
In fact, the next FBI director should be chosen to shut down the agency.
FBI delenda est.
Blogger Yancey Ward said...
I predict the jury comes back after 4 hours if Merchan doesn't dismiss the charges- guilty. If deliberations go more than a day, then there are 2 or more holdouts (a single holdout will fold within 6-8 hours just from jury pressure). After a day, the names of the holdouts will appear in the media with campouts on their doorsteps.
How I assign the 100%:
(1) Jury convicts on day 1 of deliberations-75%
(2) Jury convicts on day 2 or 3- 20%
(3) Jury hangs- 4%
I have a bit more faith in the legal profession. Not much but a bit more. Two jurors are lawyers. I think that there is a better than 4% chance of a hung jury. Maybe 10% or so.
Gusty Winds (10:47) is right but does not go far enough:
"If they pull off another fraudulent election, over half of America will have lost all faith in the justice system, the courts, judges...and the value of their vote. Good times."
Democrats who concocted this absurd show trial ought to now want more than anything for the jury to acquit. That is, IF they actually do fear a permanently alienated and embittered nation. In this sense. If Trump is convicted, and if he loses the election, his voters will have every reason to believe the system undermined democratic order. And no matter what anyone thinks about the 2020 election and the suspicions about it, this time there will be no doubt about it at all. The Democrats are playing with fire, and if they get what they want they and all of us will burn.
How long will it take for Michelle to decide that Juan Merchan is as risible as Robin DiAngelo?
Hassayamper,
Surely you know it wasn't over a piddling 2% tax, it was over the principle that they were entitled to the traditional rights of Englishmen, to be represented in Parliament, and to be fully in charge of their own local government.
https://www.declassified.live/p/fbi-authorized-use-of-deadly-force
"FBI Authorized Use of Deadly Force During Mar-a-Lago Raid"
I think they will assassinate Trump before they allow him the Presidency again. They are in too deep with the lawlessness at this point so they can't allow him a chance to clean up the DOJ/FBI and reveal what secrets they are holding in the joint agency effort to "get Trump".
James Comey, late of the FBI, was on Morning Joe this morning. They asked him about the trial. He commended the meticulous and convincing way that the DA had prepared the case. He commented that there might be a chance of a hung jury, but the most likely outcome was a guilty verdict. All the panelists on Morning Joe, nodded sagely and agreed with him. I switched over to Maria Bartiromo. She had on Alan Dershowitz. He was indignant about the way the trial was being run..... My guess is that there are more people on the jury whose biases coincide with the Morning Joe people than with Alan Dershowitz.....Still, I've served on Manhattan juries. Not on any politically or racially charged cases, but in the cases I was on, my fellow jurors were decent and responsible people who tried to render justice. Perhaps some people will be surprised by the jury's decision. This case and the way it has been handled seems patently wrong.....If this case doesn't end in dismissal or acquittal, the justice system will be held in contempt by a large portion of the populace. You'd think that people like Comey would take that into account, but the sentiment is that MAGA Republicans have no feelings which warrant respect or consideration.
Merchan jails Trump immediately on guilty verdict. I would bet on that.
Two jurors are lawyers.
Does. Not. Mean. Shit. Not anymore.
If venal black-robed idiots in the pay of the Epstein types declare you an outlaw, you may as well earn it.
That's what I've been saying for some time.
If they're going to accuse - and punish - people of doing shit they didn't do, at some point people are going to figure they've got nothing left to lose.
The left smugly thinks it will never come to that, but it's much closer then they realize.
"If this case doesn't end in dismissal or acquittal, the justice system will be held in contempt by a large portion of the populace."
Tell that to people who think Thomas and possibly Alito should have recused themselves from the Jan 6 cases.
You pretend like you haven't already thrown out judicial ethics at the SC.
After the shocking verdict in Hockey Stick Mann's defamation trial against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, I am very pessimistic that justice will prevail.
Oh... did I miss Stormy being held accountable for violating her NDA?
I’d be really happy if people would not include references to the Second Amendment and/or guns in their comments. I’d not like to give that senile old corruptocrat in the White House even the flimsiest excuse to declare martial law and cancel the election.
Dave said...
Merchan jails Trump immediately on guilty verdict. I would bet on that.
I don't think he can, on the trial verdict. But because of Trump's unruly behavior in flouting the pretrial ("gag") order, it is possible that Judge Merchan could jail Trump on a finding of contempt, in having violated that order. That would be only a short incarceration, I think.
Trump earned that; having engaged in an extended series of Trumpian violations of the judge's order(s), and having apparently encouraged, sponsored and coordinated others' violations of the spirit of those orders.
I'm encouraged, to the extent that it appears that the NYC mayor's office and the staff at Riker's has apparently created an action plan to house Trump, under Secret Service protection, on the island.
"I’d be really happy if people would not include references to the Second Amendment and/or guns in their comments."
I remember Achilles talking about rounding up people to be shot a few years ago hereĺ, so things have mellowed here.
I giggle at all the comfortably well off elderly men saber rattling, we all know they are not giving up their comfort (or jeopardize their investments) in some crazy attempt to take down the US military.
Tell that to people who think Thomas and possibly Alito should have recused themselves from the Jan 6 cases.
You pretend like you haven't already thrown out judicial ethics at the SC.
Elena. Kagan.
Hassayamper said...
I've always wondered how the American Revolution was able to draw so many men of wealth and prominence to its cause, at such great peril, over such trifling issues as a 2% tax on tea. A day may come when we all will be forced to look at the ephemerality of our worldly goods and even our lives in the same light as they did.
5/21/24, 3:06 PM
The idealistic answer would be that such men had money and principles both, and insisted on full representation. The cynical answer would talk about the American colony being reluctant to labor under the high taxes caused by war with the French, and the VERY cynical would remark that George Washington felt personally slighted by the British for not offering him a commission as a true British officer, as opposed to an auxillary. The truth is somewhere in between. I don't even think extremism for liberty is a harmless vice: such sentiments made Patrick Henry unpopular even with the other Founders, and they certainly didn't help Goldwater.
Nonetheless, I suspect you don't know how many of your countrymen feel. Many are becoming increasingly unable to pay for basic necessities. You might think you are better than them for your wealth, even as rifle-toting armies of red versus blue form over the price of chicken. You and many others are theoretically the sort of men who control the fate of the nation: the pending collapse might cost you your fortune and much else at the hands of some vast mob, regardless of their colors.
But you're old enough that you might miss the worst of what's coming. And it is coming, regardless of policies or election results.
Well, the guy currently in the WH only avoided criminal charges because the very special counsel decided that the current POTUS is too demented to stand trial.
So, that makes Trump still an upgrade.
The President is the only office holder to be a natural born citizen. There should be a law that. Involves the President the people involved ( eg, judge, jurors, attorneys) should also be natural born citizens. Having a Colombian as judge is bothersome.
some crazy attempt to take down the US military.
The US military was recently humiliated by a few hundred thousand illiterate goatherds with little more than small arms and Toyota Hilux trucks.
"The Trump trial was supposed to be such a big deal, but somehow a strange sense of anticlimax hangs over the whole affair."
Anticlimax means something trivial or commonplace that concludes a series of significant events.
That drama cannot be true because the trial is far from over since the judge has not issued jury instructions, neither side has made summary arguments, nor has the jury decided its verdict.
“The President is the only office holder to be a natural born citizen.”
Plus, I think, VP, because he has to be able tota ke over the Presidency. Presumably, the succession skips over the Speaker, etc, if they are not natural born citizens.
"If the jury convicts Trump, he will be a person who has been convicted of a felony, not "a felon." He's a human being, and you diminish your own humanity if you call him "a felon.""
Yeah, I anticipate Maddow to shriek in outrage the first time she hears someone call Trump a felon.
Bless your heart.
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