I rarely agree with him, but this is an exception. When he’s right, give him his props.

He proceeded to demonstrate how the testers give him six “names” to remember. He then proceeded to list no names at all, but five random things, “a chair, a hat, a badge, a necklace, and a vote” (That last one might have been “a boat.” He sort of slurred it.)

Trump’s sixth thing was probably “an unfound door.” He didn’t specifically name it because … well, because it wasn’t found.

——-

This has been your obscure Thomas Wolfe reference of the day. Mr. Wolfe, a true literary lion, famously listed random things in a poetic style of prose: “A stone, a leaf, an unfound door.” Perhaps Mr. Trump missed his calling.

——-

Alternate theory:

Perhaps he was answering a trivia question: “Name all the things Doja Cat wore to the 2021 VMA show.”

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Is there anyone Fani hasn’t fooled around with? I can see her smoochin’ it up with the sexy lawyer, but … well …

Kidding aside, I am having a hard time believing this story. Michael Isikoff is a respected journalist, but I would like to know his source for these anecdotes, and whether he followed the standard practice of getting another source to confirm.

Supposedly Graham said, “If you told Trump Martians stole the election, he’d probably believe you.” That’s kind of true, at least as hyperbole. If he could believe the Hugo Chavez and Ruby Freeman stuff, he would believe almost anything. This reminds me that I once worked with a market research expert who told me this anecdote about a time when his client insisted on introducing a product that had been summarily rejected by consumers in test markets.

“Since he insisted on a roll-out, I had to come up with a target market for his commercials. Do you buy ads targeting old people? Teenagers? Housewives? Since the product’s use applied more or less equally across all demo groups, and was rejected across-the-board by all of them. I got the idea of developing a gullibility score outside of the traditional demos. The client looked at my questionnaire about his product and asked me why I had included a question about the Rapture. ‘How can that be relevant?,’ he asked. I said, ‘Look, your ad claims are dubious, so you need some gullible people. If people believe in the Rapture, they will believe absolutely anything.’ He scoffed, but it turned out I was right. There was a tight correlation between people’s responses to his ads and the Rapture question. He ended up buying ads on conservative religious programming and cable networks friendly to evangelicals. It worked like a charm. The product picked up tons of first-time customers. Unfortunately, they turned out to be one-time customers because the product didn’t do what the ads implied. The lack of repeat purchases and the bad word-of-mouth soon killed it. But I still contend that my idea was Nobel Prize material.”

… as long as the Democrats in the Senate don’t convict him in an impeachment trial.

Trump’s lawyer argued that presidents can only be criminally prosecuted if they have already been tried and convicted by the Senate.

Continue reading “Trump argues that Joe Biden may assassinate him without consequences!”

I’m not going to go into them, because they will be done to death this week as she promotes her book.

I just want to make a note on a picture accompanying a Cassidy story.

One site says: “Congressman Jim Jordan is 6’3″. This makes him one of the taller members of Congress.” Yeah … maybe not.

Here is Jordan next to Cassidy Hutchinson (5’7″, so probably 5’10” in heels), Kevin McCarthy (5’10”) and Mark Meadows (6’0″).

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There are some perspective issues in that photo, but it’s clear that Jordan is much smaller than Meadows.

Matt Gaetz is reliably measured at 6’2″ according to his arrest record, but if Jim Jordan is 6’3″, then I’m guessing that Gates may actually be seven feet tall (see below). I guess that could be. He does have the forehead of Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster, who was about seven feel tall in those built-up shoes.


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Jordan’s real height? Well, he wrestled at 134 in college, so I’d say 5’7″ or 5’8″ is a decent guess.

He reported in Atlanta that he was 6’3″ and 215 pounds – almost exactly the same as the guy who plays the mighty Thor.

Yeah, they look similar.

I’m not as skeptical as most people about his current weight. (1) You can’t compare him to 30-year-old body-builders of the same height and weight. (2) He does look like he has lost weight recently. (3) He’s not 6’3″.

A-Rod is 6’3′. Here he is next to Trump.

Justin Trudeau is 6’2″. Here is Trump next to him

There are plenty of pics of Trump standing next to Obama and Vince McMahon, who are 6’1″ and exactly the same height as Trump.

So, given that he is actually only 6’1″ and seems to have lost a little weight, 215 is probably fairly close, despite the online scoffing. 215 pounds don’t distribute that well over an old guy who doesn’t exercise enough. (Believe me. I know this all too well.)

There are also about 30 unindicted co-conspirators. “The Defendants, as well as others not named as defendants, unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere.”

Full indictment.

Among the national figures charged were Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark.

Sen. Lindsey Graham was not indicted.

—–

The Georgia indictments offer certain features that the federal ones can’t:

Total transparency. The trial may be, and almost certainly will be, televised.

Accountability. Neither the POTUS nor the Georgia governor has pardon power over Georgia convictions.

On the other hand, this case is incredibly complex, with 19 different defense lawyers filing motions and demanding discovery. Many defendants will file to remove the case to federal court, and some may file to sever their case from the mass trial. Trump and his co-defendants are expected to file multiple motions and to appeal motions denied by the judge. Trump’s tactics are always the same – delay, delay, delay. All sorts of things happen over time, all of them favorable to the defense. Evidence disappears. Witnesses die or forget key facts.

Jury selection alone could take months, as it has in another racketeering case currently being pursued by the same DA. Jury selection for that trial began in January and not a single juror has been selected. Since the trial itself may last many months, it is no simple matter to find unbiased jurors who can commit to an unlimited amount of time to participate in a trial. That problem is further exacerbated in any case involving Trump, where the jurors’ lives may be at risk.

Even the trial itself may take several months, with 19 defense attorneys constantly objecting and cross-examining.

I know that the DA wants to handle the case expeditiously, but that’s unlikely. I’ll be surprised if she can bring this case to trial before the 2024 election. If Trump wins that election, I for one will be surprised if Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani will live to hear the jury return its verdict in this case.

“Trump, who first revealed the news earlier Thursday in a post on his Truth Social platform, faces seven counts, according to his lawyer and another source. The charges include false statements, conspiracy to obstruct and a charge related to the Espionage Act, sources said.”

Complete indictment here

Data published by the Pew Research Center in 2019 highlighted how federal prosecutors have a 99.6% conviction rate. This is true because federal prosecutors almost never file charges unless they have the accused dead to rights. That seems to be the case here as well. Given that the former President almost certainly did everything he is accused of, given that there is a mountain of testimony and physical evidence, and given that his own words have exacerbated his problems, his lawyers have a real challenge. What’s the defense? Most federal defendants (nearly 9 out of 10) plead out, but Trump is not one to negotiate a plea deal, so his lawyers will need to concoct some strategy as yet unforeseen.

Since a legal defense has not yet emerged, the Trump loyalists will undoubtedly try to muster a full-throated political defense. Don’t look for any of them to try to prove that Trump is innocent, although they may generalize that “he’s an innocent man” without taking any questions after making such a claim. They know what he did, and they know it was illegal. Instead, they will be screaming about the fact that the charges are politically motivated, and they will be creating a false equivalency to the Pence and Biden documents. Those red herrings will convince many in the general public that Trump is somehow being treated unfairly, but will not help him obtain a “not guilty” verdict. Even if it were true that the investigation was politically motivated, that argument is irrelevant in court, where the issues are (1) “which crimes is he accused of?” and (2) “did he actually commit them?”

The list includes Stephen Colbert, Brad Raffensberger, Letitia James, Morning Joe and Seth Meyers.

Raffensberger and James, in particular, are not involved in foreign policy. To my knowledge, neither of them has made any public statements about Russia, but they are among Trump’s bugbears. Perhaps the most obscure private citizen on the list is the Capitol Police officer who killed one of the January 6th rioters. (Although this man has no connection to Russia in any way, he is the subject of lunatic conspiracy theories among the Trumpies, and has also been singled out by Putin in the past.)

The list is confusingly inconsistent.

  • One of the most baffling omissions is Jimmy Fallon, given that Kimmel, Meyers and Colbert are banned. If Fallon’s writers ever return to work, they should have a lot of fun with this. Conan O’Brien is not on the list either, and he’s just ballsy enough to go to Russia for a comedy special.
  • In another example of inconsistency, the list does not include others perceived by Trump as enemies, like Alvin Bragg.

The list of 500 new names means that there are now 1,344 Americans covered by Russian sanctions. I was kind of heartbroken to see that I did not make the cut.

I think you probably know which one. Surprisingly, Jimmy Carter was never indicted over those two drifters he killed.

Interesting sidebar:

In the article “Republican rivals, leaders rally around Donald Trump after indictment,” not one single Trump defender suggested he was innocent! All of the defenses are deflections, basically consisting of “Sure he’s a crook, but he’s OUR crook, and those mean old Democrats are just using his guilt as a political weapon.”

It was a bad day for Trump. It was a far worse day for Judge Cannon in Florida. The appeals court ruled that every element of Judge Cannon’s ruling was incorrect, and totally agreed with the DoJ in every particular.

Trump’s declassification argument was ruled (1) unproved; and (2) even if it had been proved, irrelevant. It is irrelevant for two reasons: (1) declassification does not impact the content of the documents, and none of the cited criminal statutes are affected by whether any documents are classified; (2) even if everything was declassified, the documents would still belong to the United States, not to Trump, and the government agents therefore had the right, and obligation, to seize them.

The appeal was reviewed by a three-judge panel, two of whom were Trump appointees.

There is another issue with declassification that nobody has mentioned but (surprisingly) Bill Barr. If Trump did in fact declassify some documents that include material that needs to be secret for the security of the United States, thus making them accessible to anyone through the freedom of information act, that would be an act of recklessness more dangerous than anything else Trump has ever done.

To make an extreme example, suppose some documents showed that Al-Qaeda was developing a nuclear weapon, based on a tip by our spy within Al Qaeda. If declassification allowed Al-Qaeda to find out about the spy and to move their base of operations, and thus to continue the operation while eliminating our eyes on it, that would be providing aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States.

Declassifying that kind of information would meet the precise constitutional definition of treason. If I were in his shoes, I’d be less concerned with a charge of mishandling some papers than a charge of treason. I think it would be wise of him to drop that “I declassified everything” argument.

But then again, when has he ever been wise?

Note: The fact that somebody has the POWER to do something does not automatically make it legal. A President of the United States has pretty much unlimited power to grant federal pardons, but if he offered to grant pardons for ten million dollars each, it would still be corrupt and would be prosecuted (after the President left office) under the RICO and other statutes.

Similarly, the Vice-President has the POWER to break a tie in the Senate, but if she were to do so in return for a massive kickback from the Pharma companies, it would be criminal.

The same logic applies to declassification. If the Presidential declassification of a necessarily secret document provides aid and comfort to America’s enemies … well, he has the POWER to do that, but it could be an act of treason.

(Those are hypothetical arguments. I have no idea what is actually in the secret papers because … well, mainly because if a schmuck like me knew, they wouldn’t be very secret, would they?)

HUMOROUS SIDEBAR: I assume that back in his school days, Trump’s excuse for not having his homework was that he did it in his head. Today he said there is no documentation of declassification because he did it in his head!

“If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it.”

He also speculated that the FBI may have been looking in his desk for the missing Hilary Clinton e-mails, a speculation which is utterly demented even by his own lofty standards.


“I just can’t believe they were there for some measly papers instead of the large pile of skulls that sits in the middle of the Grand Ballroom, or the still-decomposing arms and legs that protrude from sand traps all over the golf course. But good for me! If they want to haul a bunch of boxes out of that place while walking upon the shallow, unmarked graves of people I’ve had tortured and killed, what do I care?”

Another great Onion headline:

Trump Boys Thrilled FBI Seized Documents, Leaving Dozens Of Empty Boxes To Play In”

Who could that quote be from?

Well, whoever has done the most for religion, step forward.

Not so fast, Jesus of Nazareth, Saul of Tarsus, Abraham, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, Gautama Siddhartha, the Dalai Lama, America’s founding fathers, Cool Pope Frank, and all of you other pretenders.

There’s a new holy man in town!

Nearly 60 per cent of US voters would back independent candidate over Biden or Trump

Ross Perot made the mistake of being born too early and having to run against two fairly popular candidates. If he were alive now, he could probably beat these two! Come to think of it, I don’t think there is anything in the Constitution that requires the candidate to be alive.

Speaking of not being alive … I don’t remember how to do actuarial calculations, but I wonder about the odds that both Biden and Trump will be alive in November, 2024. They are both elderly. Biden looks more feeble every day, and Trump is obese. That would be an interesting prop bet for those online gambling sites.

I can’t see how this position could be in his interest.

OK, let’s say he’s right.

Now let’s assume Trump runs against Kamala Harris in 2024 and beats her fair and square.

According to his theory, barring any new legislation to the contrary, Vice-President Kamala Harris has the authority to reject any slate of electors she has any question about, accepting instead alternate electors beholden to her, thus installing herself as President!

(That’s a pretty sweet authority – essentially the right of any party to hold power forever!)