NATIONAL HEAT AWARENESS DAY UPDATES
I know someone SUPER-aware of heat - poor baby complained about being cold for the last few weeks, and now I think he really IS a bit toasty!
-Have a good night's sleep? I know I did! But like a few of you, I woke up after the celebration of who we can now always and forever refer to as CONVICTED FELON Ex-President Trump (R-apist) with a few questions about what happens from here. So let's table until Sunday updates about elections both here and abroad (India, Mexico and South Africa), the latest out of Palestine and Ukraine (SLAVA UKRAINI!) and whatever cultural baubles and silliness pops up, and make this the What Happens Next With Trump FAQ ...
-The first big question: WILL TRUMP FINALLY GO TO JAIL (PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE)? The preponderance response is ... probably not. Trump will be sentenced on July 11, and before then he will have to meet with a New York state probation officer to answer questions about being gainfully employed, if he has dependents, if he has a Russian strongman operating him like a Muppet - same questions any newly-convicted felon gets asked. All to mock up a recommendation for sentencing.
-Trump has some 'advantages,' if you want to call them that, for a shorter sentence or fine: this is his first felony conviction, it is a white-collar crime, and in a shock to many of you, he's almost as old as President Biden. Working for a full/longer sentence (which would be four years): the sheer number of convictions (34 - same age as Taylor Swift! COINCIDENCE?!?!), the utter lack of remorse (no duh!), and those nine violations of the gag order - all of which can be used against him in consideration of sentencing. (Not to mention the logistics of having Secret Service agents monitoring a former President in a lock-up.) Plus, you KNOW there will be appeals, so any sentence will be deferred until those have wound down.
-The best guess seems to be that if there is some kind of incarceration - and maybe attacking the Judge's daughter may not have been all that good an idea? - in the form of being bound at one of his resorts, but after the November elections.
-That leads to a question: IF TRUMP ISN'T IMPRISONED, WHAT DOES HAPPEN TO HIM? Well, there are countries he cannot travel to being a convicted felon (the Bahamas and Canada, for two). He cannot own a gun, so if he tries to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue he will NOT get away with it. He will have that felony reported to every other case being tried against him and every other case that has had judgments rendered against him, so things like bail in the Fulton County case and extra fines should E. Jean Carroll sue him again will likely have more zeroes added to them. And he won't be able to vote - at least in New York, and only if/when/during he is imprisoned (however, in his technical residence in FL, he will be allowed to vote, because while felons in FL cannot vote, they allow residents who are felons in states where the felonies occurred to vote if said states allow them to - and they do in NY). So, a few things.
-That leads to another question: CAN TRUMP PARDON HIMSELF FOR THESE CRIMES? The happy answer: NO! This was a New York state case, so no federal self-pardon will carry through. Only a flipping of the verdict in the state of New York - not the U.S. Supreme Court - can theoretically overturn the convictions. (And remember, bad lawyering because of a bad client is no reason to overturn a jury, no matter how many people scream RIGGED!).
-A big one: WHAT HAPPENS TO TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN? Well, as Eugene V. Debs proved in 1920 under very different circumstances, there is nothing that stops a prisoner (or a felon) from running for office. Technically, the Republican Party could choose not to nominate him - and their convention begins July 15, four days after sentencing! But since the verdict, the MAGAts (and at this point, all Republicans are MAGAts) have circled the wagons, as everyone from exiting former leaders (McConnell) to concerned elders (Susan Collins) to would-be Veeps (Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Elise Stefanik, J.D. Vance) to the biggest MAGA leaders (Marjorie Taylor Greene, tearing a page from the new MarthaHYPHENAnn Alito and publishing a photo of an upside down American flag) have taken Trump's talking point about the corruption of the rigged court system all focusing on taking down the only perfect American out there - Trump - and are running with it.
-Fundraising appeals in which Trump is misidentified as a "POLITICAL PRISONER" (no, MF-er, you're a two-bit FELON who is still roaming this country) have already been sent (and allegedly crashed their web site, though that could also be from forgetting to pay the GoDaddy monthly fee) (ALLEGEDLY) (eyeroll), and Trump "warned" Biden that he will now be heading to the road to 'campaign' on a platform of vengeance ("If they can do this to me then they can do this to you!") and keeping his butt out of jail. And aside from MD Senate candidate Larry Hogan (who actually said the verdict should lead to reconsideration of Trump's nomination, which in turn made Trump's campaign-manager-in-name-only warn that Hogan was "dead" to them), the Party has clearly fallen in line to defend Dear Leader.
-The verdict has also apparently not dissuaded what is now becoming a procession of billionaires now heading to Trump's side for November. In the hours since the verdict, widowed billionairess Miriam Adelson, vulture capitalists Bill Ackman and David Sacks, and warped investor Elon Musk have all chipped in SuperPACs and other monies to the campaign (with new reports that Musk and Trump are talking almost daily ... what THOSE calls would be like).
-And perhaps comes the biggest question of all: WILL BEING A CONVICTED FELON FINALLY MAKE VOTERS LEAVE TRUMP? Well, the first polling - and we know what polling has been like in the last few cycles - indicate there could be a 'mere' 2% of voters that would reconsider not voting for Trump if he became a felon. But there is electoral context there: if 2% of Trump voters from 2020 flipped or did not vote for Biden - and Biden holds his numbers from 2020 - that would likely make states like AZ, GA, MI, PA and WI extremely difficult for Trump to win. It would likely also put NC into play (which the Biden campaign believes already is), and so IF that was the number and IF Biden maintains that support (and yes, he has work to do there), it would make it very, VERY difficult for Trump to eke out a win.
-Because, in the end, what this trial showed is that Trump 'won' 2016 dirty. For friends asking exactly what Trump was convicted of, or if they think this was a hush money payment to a porn star, the answer - as victorious Attorney General Alvin Bragg explained yesterday - was that at its heart, the 34 crimes that Trump was convicted of was the REAL election interference. Trump was able to squelch the Stormy Daniels story from coming out before Election Day 2016 in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape, and therefore we can infer that a second sex scandal breaking a week before the election would likely have ended Trump's campaign - but catching and killing the story paved the way for the Comey letter to be released and freak out just enough people to not vote for Hillary Clinton and allow Trump to get into the White House.
-And, for those of you still worried that this won't matter, remember this: Trump has never come CLOSE to winning a majority of the vote in 2016 (lost by 3 million) or 2020 (lost by 7 million) - but he has gotten majorities in two trials in which Trump voters WERE present to agree that he was a criming criminal who conducted crimes.
-As the final touches are being put on this update, Trump is yammering and whining in his typical stream-of-consciousness slurring repetitive rant about the trial and his plight. Literally nothing he is saying is new, or interesting, or compelling - and the crowd at Trump Tower is listening, and you can hear a pin drop. This man is a shadow of what he was in 2015 and 2020, and it will only continue to sundown from here. Only now he has another title …
-CONVICTED. FELON. TRUMP. Say it every time you mention his name. He earned it and he deserves it!
-(Geez, all that AND the story about the former APPRENTICE hand whose NDA ran out who said Trump used the N-word freely while filming that TV show dang near got lost!)
-Oh, and THIS JUST IN: Joe Manchin is now an Independent. Yawn.
-On this date in 1889, over 2200 died in a flood that overtook Johnstown, PA. On this date in 1921, a riot began in reaction to an alleged crime against a white woman by a black man in Tulsa, OK, that resulted in over 300 known dead and the affluent Black neighborhood of Greenwood razed by white rioters. On this date in 1977, the BBC banned The Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen." On this date in 1982, IRS Records signed a promising Athens, GA quartet named REM. On this date in 2005, former FBI official Mark Felt revealed himself as "Deep Throat," the anonymous source that helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigate the Watergate scandal. And on this date in 2014, Psy's "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube video to hit 2 billion views.
-Debuts on this date: U.S. Copyrights (1790), Decoration Day (1868), South Africa (1910), the Indianapolis 500 (1911), the Lincoln Memorial (1922), Nissan Motor Company (1934), ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (1967), the Trans-Atlantic Pipeline (1977), ILL COMMUNICATION (1994), GOOD GIRL GONE BAD (2007).
-Happy Birthday to Walt Whitman, Fred Allen, Norman Vincent Peale, Don Ameche, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Denholm Elliott, Prince Rainier III, Johnny Paycheck, Peter Yarrow, Joe Namath, Sharon Gless, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John Bonham, Tom Berenger, Gregory Harrison, Jim Craig, Kyle Secor, Chris Elliott, Lea Thompson, Corey Hart, Wesley Willis, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, Brooke Shields, DJ Casper, Kenny Lofton, Dave Roberts, Colin Farrell, Nate Robinson, Waka Flocka Flame, Philippa Soo, Azealia Banks, and Iga Swiatek.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Joseph Haydn, Bill Vukovich, Billy Strayhorn, Jack Dempsey, Spuds MacKenzie, Timothy Leary, Johnnie Taylor, Tito Puente, Arlene Francis, Dr. George Tiller, Chris Haney, Jean Stapleton, and Arlene Golonka.
-Feed the Worms: Racist Washington lobbyist and football team owner Edward Bennett Williams and modern-day fascist Viktor Orban entered Earth on this date.
-Clint Eastwood was born on this date. You decide if he gets a Happy Birthday or if he Feeds the Worms.