NATIONAL GARAGE DAY
Here's To All The Things We Put In Garages, from Cars to Second Refrigerators to Fledgling Rock Bands to World-Changing Gadgetry! YAY GARAGES!!
-So exactly why is Progressive Legal Social Media in a state of despair after yesterday's Supreme Court hearing about Trump's claim of Mega-Gigantor Immunity? After all, by every account the first part of the hearing was atrocious, with Trump attorney John Sauer flagrantly saying Presidents (well, Trump) have a License to Kill and being torn to shreds even by the likes of Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts for its brazenness. That was pretty much the entire Trump argument, and there did not seem to be a desire for that kind of immunity.
-So, wha'happened?
-Wha'happened was what followed, where DoJ attorney Michael Dreeben continually tried to talk about the particular case in question - Trump's role in the January 6 insurrection - and the fact that, by their own admissions, the Federalist Society SCOTI wanted to talk about literally anything and everything but the facts in the case. Whether it was Neil Gorsuch visibly losing interest every time Dreeben tried to discuss Trump, to Kavanaugh beer-ponging between apparently wanting a literal law that says a President cannot do the things Trump did and praising Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon as "one of the best decisions by a President" and claiming everyone agrees with that statement (uh, HELL TO THE NO), to the consistently pompously vile Samuel Alito creating what-if after what-if after what-if in being more concerned about a hypothetical future president doing things that ... well, Trump actually did in 2020-21 - but again, openly stating he did not care as much about the case in front of him.
-At least the women on the Supreme Court cared - in particular Ketanji Brown Jackson, who continually supported Dreeben's push to make January 6, 2021 as the focus, and Sonia Sotomayor, who warned that "In the end, if (democracy) fails completely, it's because we've destroyed our democracy on our own."
-As has often been the case, it appears Chief Justice Roberts is the pivot (because, come on, you think Ginni's husband is gonna side with Jack Smith?!), and what most observers believe will happen is that yes, SCOTUS will say no President has total immunity ... so long as the acts are "private" acts not being done as part of their role as President ... and, rather than do what most observers said was to make that ruling so the January 6 trial could continue, the suspicion is that the majority SCOTUS will say they have no idea whether plotting to overturn an election are official acts or not (wink) and the only possible way that will have to be figured out (wink wink) is to demand Judge Tanya Chutkan to rule on each of the charges (wink wink wink) and allow for Team Trump to appeal (winkwinkwinkwinkwinkwink!!!), thereby achieving the secondary and more important goal of delaying the trial until after the November election when Trump could return to power and safely claim immunity as part of the Heritage Society's plan for American apartheid otherwise known as Project 2025 (why are all the men on the Supreme Court batting their eyes at us like they have astigmatisms?).
-After all that you're probably as sad as your run-of-the-mill Neil Katyal or Glenn Kirschner, so let us pivot from DC to NYC, where the ongoing trial of Trump's payment to Stormy Daniels to quash that story before the 2016 election continued - and continued to go very badly for Trump. Former National Enquirer publisher and still too-well-named David Pecker continued to describe the extensive catch-and-kill schemes he used to help Trump, yesterday focusing on a payout to a former Trump mistress, Karen McDougal. Pecker testified that McDougal was all but given a job with the Enquirer in exchange for staying silent about her 10-month affair with Trump - but that, unlike other (admitted-by-Pecker to be illegal) payments to other women, the Trump people did not reimburse Pecker for the cost of McDougal's silence and Pecker finally saying enough was enough, which sets the stage for the Daniels tryst and need to pay her by other means. Pecker will be on the stand today to wrap up his testimony and set up other witnesses, notably Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks, to corroborate and begin expanding on this crime.
-In addition, Trump's attempt to overturn the $80M penalty assessed for smearing E. Jean Carroll was refused. So while the big kahuna of SCOTUS is likely going to more or less go Trump's way (unless both Roberts and Barrett side with the liberals, which admittedly happens on occasion), even that case is likely to mean more and more money going from the Trump campaign and Republican coffers to lousy attorneys trying to keep his head above water and not dozing off in the process.
-OH - and there are continuing investigations into fake electors in states that can continue their work whether SCOTUS tells them to or not! There was the wave of indictments in Arizona earlier this week (presided over by a Democratic Attorney General who defeated his MAGA opponent by less than 500 votes) as well as a second group of fake electors in Michigan who are being prosecuted in those schemes. In both instances, Trump has been called an "unindicted co-conspirator," with the implication that investigations continue in both states as well as the upcoming (soon we hope!) RICO trial in Georgia where Trump is a loudly-named co-conspirator. Remember, state trials can continue even if federal trials are stalled in endless expensive litigation, so ... breathe ...
-Meanwhile, if you needed an indication that both the Trump legal travails and polling for President Biden may be creating polling space between the men (if you believe that sort of thing), you only need look to Axios for a new round of BOTHSIDER ALERT - BIDEN B OLD! stories, this one detailing from an "insider" how Secret Service agents are getting in front of photographers when Biden is going to the Presidential helicopter in order to hide what they breathlessly call "his halting and stiff gait."
-That story comes on the heels of a Politico story reporting that the New York Times absolutely has been hammering the BIDEN B OLD stories on the orders of Times publisher AG Sulzberger, who according to Politico did so because of the importance of having able-bodied Presidents - HAHAHA, no, not because of anything responsible, but because Sulzberger is butt-hurt that Biden has not been interviewed by the Times and this is Sulzberger's retribution (something the White House is also aware of and not giving an inch over). The report led to a statement from the Times essentially confirming the Politico story, in case you needed an excuse to end your Times subscriptions despite the recipes and the crosswords ...
-Student protests across the country demanding more action to stop the Israeli war in Palestine continues to spread and draw reactions from various authorities. While negotiations continue to try to get Columbia University students to leave on-campus encampments, the University of Southern California announced they have cancelled their main graduation ceremony (individual schools will go on with their ceremonies), and a three-school protest will take place this morning here in Chicago demanding an end to military support for Israel. All that comes after House Speaker-for-now Mike Johnson (R-Jay-EE-Zuz!, LA) travelled to Columbia University and called for National Guard troops to end the encampments, as well as hecklers wondering how and why Johnson still had a job (because, New York City!).
-In better court news, creepy Internet influencer on toxic masculinity Andrew Tate begins today in Romania. Tate, who boasts of never sleeping with women who received the Covid vaccine and, in an odd post, somehow claimed getting sex from women is the epitome of Not Being A Man, stands trial with his brother on multiple charges of human trafficking and rape. We know who we want to see stuck in a prison given how most prisons deal with sex criminals ...
-And closing with genuinely positive news, a newly-created company in Chicago called Global Tetrahedron has purchased the beloved satirical newspaper The Onion. The firm, whose very name is the same used by The Onion for a massive corporation in their book OUR DUMB CENTURY, will be helmed by former Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson (who is the primary investor) and former NBC News tech reporter Ben Collins. The Onion is staying in Chicago, will not lay any writers off, and hopefully will find stories to write about in the hours and days and weeks to come!
-On this date in 1607, the first English settlers landed at Cape Henry in what we now call Maryland. On this date in 1937, German bombers launched an attack on the Basque city of Guernica - an event memorialized in what was arguably Pablo Picasso's most important work. On this date in 1945, Harry Truman received his first briefing on The Manhattan Project. On this date in 1986, a nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded and caught fire - to date the worst nuclear accident in history. On this date in 1990, the Hubbard Space Telescope was launched. On this date in 2014, unelected caretakers attempting to cut municipal expenses in Flint, MI, authorized switching the city's water supply to the polluted Flint River. On this date in 2018, Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman (the conviction was overturned on a technicality in 2021).
-Notable debuts on this date: ROBINSON CRUSOE (1719), the Gestapo (1933), an organ at baseball stadiums (1941, at Wrigley Field!), THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), Tanzania (1964), NFL overtime (1974).
-Happy Birthday to Muhammad, John James Audubon, Fredrick Law Olmsted, Ma Rainey, Anita Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hack Wilson, Bernard Malamud, I.M. Pei, Sal Maglie, Bernie Brillstein, Carol Burnett, Duane Eddy, Giorgio Moroder, Bobby Rydell, Claudine Auger, Gary Wright, Chris Mars, Joan Chen, Bill Wennington, Jet Li, Kevin James, Kane, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, T-Boz, Kosuke Fukudome, Joe Crede, Jessica Lynch, and Aaron Judge.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Gypsy Rose Lee, Irene Ryan, Count Basie, Broderick Crawford, Lucille Ball, Carmine Coppola, Stirling Silliphant, Mason Adams, Jack Valenti, Phoebe Snow, George Jones, Jayne Meadows, Jonathan Demme, and Charles Neville.
-Feed the Worms: Rudolf Hess entered Earth on this date. John Wilkes Booth bought it on this date.
-It's also Melania Trump's birthday, but I don't care. (Do you?)