ICE in LA

Good luck getting any actual, true news reporting this week.

 

UPDATE

Will things continue to escalate, perhaps culminating in a Trump declaration of "Insurrection Act" martial law in DC on June 14th during his controversial, sure-to-be-angrily-protested self-glorifying military "celebration" parade?

  

Trump says anyone who protests at Saturday's military parade 'will be met with very heavy force'

Donald Trump warned people against protesting at this weekend’s military parade in Washington to celebrate the US Army’s 250th anniversary.

“For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

Law enforcement agencies are preparing for hundreds of thousands of people to attend Saturday’s parade, Secret Service special agent in charge Matt McCool (his real name) said yesterday, according to Reuters.

McCool said thousands of agents, officers and specialists will be deployed from law enforcement agencies from across the country.


The FBI and the Metropolitan police department have said there are no credible threats to the event. [per The Guardian]

 

Dear President Joe Biden:

An open letter.

November 6, 2024
DEAR PRESIDENT BIDEN 


cc: Vice President Harris

You remain our incumbent President until 12:01 pm January 20th, 2025—75 more days as I write and post this on November 6th.

Donald Trump’s collaborators (e.g., former AG William Barr most notably today) have wasted no time DEMANDING that the serious current federal criminal cases against him—involving his asserted January 6th, 2021 insurrection complicity and illegal possession of Classified documents—be summarily dropped forthwith by our Department of Justice.

Your Oath to the Constitution remains binding. Your obligation to see that our rule of law remains intact and functional until you are succeeded in Office remains binding.

Donald Trump has repeatedly evaded honorable dealings and lawful accountability since the Days of Bone Spurs. It may very well now be the case that he can use his hand-picked judiciary operatives to continue to Melt Clock so that he might escape consequences yet again.

The American people deserve to know ALL of the details comprising the foregoing (redacted where appropriate). The realities of clock and calendar may indeed mean he will again evade his days in courts. Nonetheless, you must NOT let the full record of these proceedings be spiked and buried—by all necessary and lawful means within the scope of your Official Duties (as recently indemnified by the Supreme Court).

Thank you, sir, for your service.

Sincerely,

Robert Gladd
Baltimore, Maryland

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CRIMINAL NO. 23-cr-257 (TSC): UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs DONALD J. TRUMP

GOVERNMENT’S MOTION FOR IMMUNITY DETERMINATION

The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so. Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role. In Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024), the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct— including the defendant’s use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment—and remanded to this Court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized. The answer to that question is no.

We shall see, I guess. Unsurprisingly, the Defendant is unhappy.

 

As I post this, the news developments are coming fast and furious.

UPDATE

Jack Smith’s Big New Jan. 6 Brief Is a Major Indictment of the Supreme Court

It’s rare to simultaneously feel red-hot anger and wistfulness, especially when merely reading a document. But those are exactly the emotions that washed over me when I read the redacted version of special counsel Jack Smith’s brief reciting in detail the evidence against Donald Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 election. The anger is at the Supreme Court for depriving the American people of the chance for a full public airing of Donald Trump’s attempt to use fraud and trickery to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory before voters consider whether to put Trump back in office beginning January 2025. The wistfulness comes with the recognition that there is about an even chance that this will be the last evidence produced by the federal government of this nefarious plot. If Donald Trump wins election next month, the end of this prosecution is certain and the risks of future election subversion heightened...

UPDATE

Click

 FROM JOYCE VANCE WHITE'S SUBSTACK

None of Trump’s interactions with the people listed in the document were made in his role as Chief Executive. Instead, he acted as a candidate grasping at straws, seeking any angle to cling to power. This clarity makes the filing more focused and devastating, particularly as it highlights the involvement of Trump’s campaign staff and personal advisers—figures among the most corrupt and amoral imaginable. 

The document is not only a shocking moral indictment of Trump but an unprecedented window into the fraudulent scheme he spearheaded to maintain power. It exposes Trump’s belief that lies and coercion could resolve any crisis, relying on his subordinates to follow his will without question. What’s remarkable in this filing is how little resistance Trump faced within his inner circle, proving just how far he had ingrained the “stolen election” lie well before the votes were even cast. As alarming as this is, it’s a grim forecast of what may come as Trump continues to sow similar seeds of doubt today...

MOVING ALONG

Paula White was, in many ways, not the first televangelist to get a job in the White House. The first, I would argue, was Donald Trump himself, who had entered the White House two years earlier. In the picture that Paula White paints, Trump has long been an assiduous student of TV preaching, particularly what’s propagated by prosperity preachers and positive thinkers. With his oddly coiffed hair, his formative Norman Vincent Peale theology, his salesmanship, his bombastic oratory, and his unflinching personal schtick forged out of years of celebrity and television savvy, Trump has pantomimed the televangelists. His celebrity could easily mingle with Paula White’s clique of entrepreneurial charismatic celebrities because Trump’s whole brand is made of similar material. For what is “Make America Great Again” if not a gospel? It’s a nationalistic prosperity gospel, to be sure, mixed with a few “American carnage” fire-and-brimstone threats if Trump’s ways are not followed. Coached by Paula White, Trump has now mastered the religious dimension of his own televangelism career, riding evangelical support all the way to the White House.

There was only one official White House-sanctioned prayer offered on the morning of January 6, 2021. It was led by Paula White. On that cold January morning, before Donald Trump’s speech at the Ellipse telling the lusty crowds to “fight like hell,” before Rudy Giuliani shouted for “trial by combat,” and before the crowds began marching across the National Mall to threaten lawmakers into reneging on American democracy, an invocation from Paula White opened the event.

Let us pray, because God is going to be in today. We believe in miracles...

So let every adversary against democracy, against freedom, against life, against liberty, against justice, against peace, against righteousness be overturned right now in the name of Jesus...

God, we ask right now in conclusion for your provision, for your protection, for your power, for an outpouring of your Spirit like never before. I secure POTUS [President of the United States]. I thank you for President Trump. I thank you that he has stood with Israel; he has stood with life; he has stood for righteousness...

He has walked in your ways. And as you have allowed me to have a relationship with him and his family for twenty years, right now, as his pastor, I put a hedge of protection around him. I secure his purpose. I secure his destiny. I secure his life.

This tenacious, talented, tragic, triumphant woman—someone who has broken every glass ceiling she came up against—became the first pastor to offer an official blessing over an attempted American insurrection.

It’s true that Paula White has built bridges. She built a bridge that allowed her fellow Independent Charismatics to enthusiastically join the inner circle of power within the religious right. She built a bridge across a major divide in American evangelicalism between charismatics and noncharismatics. And she built a bridge between the Independent Charismatic celebrity class and the White House.

These bridges proved strong enough that the leaders of the NAR, and other ambitious charismatic leaders and networks, could link arms with other Christians and Trump advisers in an attempt to overthrow our democracy, all under the banner of Christian unity and revival hope.

Taylor, Matthew D.. The Violent Take It by Force (pp. 47-48). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.

Also timely, 'eh?

 

I expected I'd to enjoy the book, but thus far I am way more impressed than I'd anticipated. I DM'd the author.

 

I have to do a bit of attitude readjustment with respect to some of these evangelist people.

 

A bit.

Paula in the pink suit.

Again, just a bit.

 

Let Us Prey.
 

I wrote a song about religion once. Long time ago. Has sort of a 3/4 time Loggins & Messina 70’s groove to it.

 

Moving along to the ensuing chapter...

 

Highly recommended read. More to come...

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I am confident that I speak for many...

Crazy day in the courts and media today. Still unclear as to the verifiable upshot(s) of the multiple DOJ and Trump tactical moves regarding the former President's multiple indictments. I will await credible clarification prior to posting much more.

 

Reliable coverage can be found at Emptywheel.

 

UPDATE

 

UPDATE: Yeah. Title II, Federal Code of Criminal Procedure, 2021 edition. If you come to arraignment via summons (rather than physical arrest), you will be equivalently "Mirandized" by the presiding magistrate judge during your appearance.

 

Mr. Trump now publicly denies having been aware that he'd lost the 2020 election. This will be a core component of his trial-by-media-PR strategy going forward, in addition to his Advice-of-Counsel gambit.

 

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Donald Trump indicted for January 6th insurrection

 

Trump is newly charged with violations of 18 USC 371, 18 USC 1512(c)(2), 18 USC 1512(k), and 18 USC 241.

 

Breaking... 

Click for full text.

1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.

2. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.

3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

4. Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results…

Read all of it.

 

Stay tuned to Marcy Wheeler ("Emptywheel") for the best, most detailed analytic insights ongoing.

 

UPDATE

 

I have now been carefully through all 45 pages of this latest indictment. Every American should do likewise. 

Read the indictment.

For those who have been closely following Trump’s attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 election, there was little new information contained in the indictment. In straightforward language with mountains of evidence, the 45-page document explains how Trump, acting with six (so far unnamed, but easily recognizable) co-conspirators, engaged in a scheme to repeatedly make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged, and to use those false claims as a predicate to try to steal the election. The means of election theft were national, not just confined to one state, as in the expected Georgia prosecution. And they were technical—submitting alternative slates of presidential electors to Congress, and arguing that state legislatures had powers under the Constitution and an old federal law, the Electoral Count Act, to ignore the will of the state’s voters. But Trump’s corrupt intent was clear: He was repeatedly told that the election was not stolen, and he knew that no evidence supported his outrageous claims of ballot tampering. He nonetheless allegedly tried to pressure state legislators, state election officials, Department of Justice officials, and his own vice president to manipulate these arcane, complex election rules to turn himself from an election loser into an election winner. That’s the definition of election subversion. — Richard L. Hasen

THE CRAZY RAMPS BACK UP

 

Imagine my surprise.

 

Broadly,

TRUMP MOCKS IT

 

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J6 Insurrection indictment day?

4:30 PM UPDATE

Doesn't look like there will be any J6 indictment released today. BUT—prosecutors issued a superceding indictment in the Mar-a-lago classified documents case, over the security cameras footage deletions.

THE DON RESPONDS

 

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#ElmerStewartMandela

 Who also thinks he's the U.S. Solzhenitsyn.

 

Mr. Multiple Personalities, Legend-in-His-Own-Minds, playtriot Elmer Stewart Rhodes. Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy. Sentenced to 18 years.

Producer, Director, Star, and Victim in his own Epic Theatrical Release.

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January 7th, 2021: A Fentanyl Overdose of Insincerity

"It's a small coup, after all..."

 

 

One could be forgiven for wondering whether this was the latest Animatronic Exhibit at Disney World in Orlando.

Reports pertaining to the January 6th Committee investigation indicate that an irritated and rattled Trump had to do multiple, grudging re-takes on this brief 2:41 address to the nation following the previous day's insurrection attack on the Capitol—vicious violence that he had fomented.

It is well beyond obvious that Trump did not write these words. He had to be coerced by staff, under the spectre of the 25th Amendment, to haltingly read them from the teleprompter.

"A republic, if you can keep it."

 

ERRATUM

Such magnanimity.

 

SUSAN B. GLASSER

On Thursday night, the House select committee charged with investigating January 6th concluded a two-month run of blockbuster hearings with a searing, minute-by-minute account of what Trump did—and didn’t do—in the dining room that awful afternoon. The words “dereliction of duty” came up a lot, as did phrases like “stain on our history” and “betrayed his oath of office.” It all added up to a portrait of something that the United States has not seen in its more than two hundred and forty years: a President who abdicated his role as Commander-in-Chief, having unleashed a violent mob of his own making and then chosen to sit by and do nothing as his nation’s Capitol was besieged and overwhelmed by that mob. “President Trump did not fail to act,” Representative Adam Kinzinger, the renegade, anti-Trump Republican from Illinois, who presented much of the evidence on Thursday, said. “He chose not to act.”

Sociopath-in-Chief.

 

LOL. Found on Twitter

CODA

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Lock him UP!

“Book ’im, Dano.”

After seven hearings held by the January 6 committee thus far this summer, doubts as to who is responsible have been resolved. The evidence is now overwhelming that Donald Trump was the driving force behind a massive criminal conspiracy to interfere with the official January 6 congressional proceeding and to defraud the United States of a fair election outcome.

The evidence is clearer and more robust than we as former federal prosecutors—two of us as Department of Justice officials in Republican administrations—thought possible before the hearings began. Trump was not just a willing beneficiary of a complex plot in which others played most of the primary roles. While in office, he himself was the principal actor in nearly all of its phases, personally executing key parts of most of its elements and aware of or involved in its worst features, including the use of violence on Capitol Hill. Most remarkably, he did so over vehement objections raised at every turn, even by his sycophantic and loyal handpicked team. This was Trump’s project all along.

Everyone knew before the hearings began that we were dealing with perhaps the gravest imaginable offense against the nation short of secession—a serious nationwide effort pursued at multiple levels to overturn the unambiguous outcome of a national election. We all knew as well that efforts were and are unfolding nationwide to change laws and undermine electoral processes with the specific objective of succeeding at the same project in 2024 and after. But each hearing has sharpened our understanding that Donald Trump himself is the one who made it happen…

About the authors: Donald Ayer served as United States attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and as deputy attorney general under George H. W. Bush. Stuart M. Gerson served as assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice from 1989 to 1993 and as acting attorney General in 1993. He is a member of the firm at Epstein Becker Green. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor and former Chief Assistant City Attorney in San Francisco, currently Of Counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.

Read all of it. Please.

"For the past 18 months, and presently, Trump himself and his supporters have been engaged in concerted efforts across the country to prepare for a similar, but better-planned, effort to overcome the minority status of Trump’s support and put him back in the White House."

Indeed. Acute danger remains.

 

UPDATES:

 

Click above title for 69 PDF pages of principled conservative evidentiary whup-ass.
Read all of it. Please.

We are political conservatives who have spent most of our adult lives working to support the Constitution and the conservative principles upon which it is based: limited government, liberty, equality of opportunity, freedom of religion, a strong national defense, and the rule of law.

We have become deeply troubled by efforts to overturn or discredit the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. There is no principle of our Republic more fundamental than the right of the People to elect our leaders and for their votes to be counted accurately. Efforts to thwart the People’s choice are deeply undemocratic and unpatriotic. Claims that an election was stolen, or that the outcome resulted from fraud, are deadly serious and should be made only on the basis of real and powerful evidence. If the American people lose trust that our elections are free and fair, we will lose our democracy...

We therefore have undertaken an examination of every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by former President Trump and his advocates, and now put the results of those investigations before the American people, and especially before fellow conservatives who may be uncertain about what and whom to believe. Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states. Biden’s victory is easily explained by a political landscape that was much different in 2020 than it was when President Trump narrowly won the presidency in 2016. President Trump waged his campaign for re-election during a devastating worldwide pandemic that caused a severe downturn in the global economy. This, coupled with an electorate that included a small but statistically significant number willing to vote for other Republican candidates on the ballot but not for President Trump, are the reasons his campaign fell short, not a fraudulent election.

Donald Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. We do not claim that election administration is perfect. Election fraud is a real thing; there are prosecutions in almost every election year, and no doubt some election fraud goes undetected. Nor do we disparage attempts to reduce fraud. States should continue to do what they can do to eliminate opportunities for election fraud and to punish it when it occurs. But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate…
______

"As part of his post-election attempts to retain the presidency, Donald Trump and his supporters filed 64 cases containing 187 counts in the six key battleground states, in addition to utilizing some of the recount and contest procedures available to them under state law. The former president maintains to this day that the 2020 election was stolen and the results fraudulent.

This Report takes a hard look at the very serious charges made by Trump and his supporters. The consequences of a president and a major party candidate making such charges are monumental…"
 

 

June 16th:
Judge J. Michael Luttig on the Trump coup attempt

 

UPDATE

 

There are disconcerting, credible reports asserting that, according to the DHS Inspector General's Office, the U.S. Secret Service deleted certain Agents' text messages and mobile phone comms records pertaining to Jan 5th and 6th, 2021 activities. The January 6th Committee is reported to have issued subpoenas for information relevant to this. Historically, Secret Service compliance has been spotty at best—ostensibly owing to OpSec concerns. This bears watching.

"Former impeachment lawyer and White House ethics czar Norm Eisen speculated whether there were Secret Service agents who are part of Donald Trump's plot to overthrow the government."

"Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel is told"

 

OPINION SHIFTING

CODA

 

Ok, couldn't resist. This is funny.

 

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The January 6th Committee

We remain in a very dangerous time. What if the so-called "Proud Boys" and "Oath Keepers" conspirators had been able to show up en masse armed with assault weapons?

And, yes, we know there had been fireams and ammunition stashed nearby across the river, outside DC city limits.

I can readily think of a number of people who would now be dead, starting with Vice President Pence. Prominent others mentioned as Capitol assassination targets include Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and AOC.

Watch the entire 2-hr first hearing on YouTube.

IN SHORT:

 

RUPERT MURDOCH'S NEW YORK POST

Trump has become a prisoner of his own ego. He can’t admit his tweeting and narcissism turned off millions. He won’t stop insisting that 2020 was “stolen” even though he’s offered no proof that it’s true.

Respected officials like former Attorney General Bill Barr call his rants “nonsense.” This isn’t just about Liz Cheney. Mitch McConnell, Betsy DeVos, Mark Meadows — they all knew Trump was delusional. His own daughter and son-in-law testified it was bull.

Trump’s response? He insults Barr, and dismisses Ivanka as “checked out.” He clings to more fantastical theories, such as Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked “2,000 Mules,” even as recounts in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin confirm Trump lost.

Meanwhile, reports that Trump was pleased that the Jan. 6 crowd chanted for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged — a truly reprehensible sentiment — makes him unworthy for the office. Trump can’t look past 2020. Let him remain there.

OK, then.

Final thought for now.

As a general rule, Congress doesn’t do so well when the cameras are on. Members rant and rave and preen and grandstand with an eye toward self-advancement. The proceedings for even the most serious matters, like the impeachment of a president, can feel grossly, absurdly performative. Thursday’s hearing went in the opposite direction. Only two members spoke, Ms. Cheney and Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman. Both kept their tones measured and kept the focus on the evidence and the witnesses. They and their colleagues were clearly laying out a case as much for the history books as for the contemporary audience.

But the meat of their story — that is, the evidence — was anything but muted or sedate. It was raw and violent and at times hard to watch, especially the video of the Capitol attack, which included footage not previously made public. The clip of the mob filing through the House corridors chanting “Nancy! Nancy!” as it searched for Speaker Pelosi was chilling. So too were the howls to “Hang Mike Pence,” the increasingly panicked radio dispatches from overwhelmed police officers (“We’ve lost the line! We’ve lost the line!”), the trashing of the Capitol, the brutal clashes, the roaring insanity of it all. Whoever assembled the video shrewdly inserted, toward the end, a voice-over of Mr. Trump talking about how peaceful the event was and how much “love” was in the air. Now, that is some storytelling…

The Jan. 6 committee has been charged with telling a story for the ages — one that they know much of the country will simply tune out. Indeed, even as the hearing was getting rolling, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson was boasting of his network’s decision not to seriously cover the event: “We’re not playing along,” he said, noting that “this is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live.”

No matter: These public servants understand the seriousness of their duty, and they are doing their damnedest to help the rest of us grasp what is at stake as well. —Michelle Cottle, NY Times

“In his dystopian Inaugural speech, Trump promised to end ‘American carnage.’ Instead, he delivered it. Now he needs to be held accountable for his attempted coup—and not just in the court of public opinion.”—Maureen Dowd, NY Times, "Donald Trump, American Monster"

__________

 

#TrumpDependenceDay

Where are things headed?

 

apropos, the tactical "Independent State Legislatures Doctrine." Unsuccessful—this time.

 

CRUZIN' TIMELINE

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UPDATE: NEW READINGS

 

 Finished the Jason Stanley book. Well into "Truth Decay."

Two more:

Dr. Linden's book is a totally compelling read. Finished it in one day. I'm just starting the Graeber / Wengrow book. I sure miss the late David Graeber.

And, two more in progress.

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