Do you remember last Monday? It’s pretty hard when the week runs over you like a freight train.
One of the most minor stories of the week was the Donald Trump cheating trial. Journalists have taken to calling this the “hush money trial”, or, if they have a scintilla of integrity, the “election interference trial based on hush money payoffs to a porn star”. Remember, I said, “scintilla”.
In a normal world, this would be a huge deal, where the evidence shows that one of the major candidates for the White House scammed the American voters the first time he was up for national election.
Or, as Colin Jost said at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:
So, let me see if I can summarize where this race stands at this moment. The Republican for President owes half a billion in fines for bank fraud and is currently spending his days farting himself awake during a porn star hush-money trial and the race is tied?
Reports are that a huge chunk of the American people might still vote for Little Dictator Donald Trump. Can you fathom that? Why is this happening? (To quote a famous MSNBC host.) I’ll get to that later.
But it’s nearly been wiped off the front pages (remember them) by other pressing news.
For example, we had reports of the nearly public meeting of the SCOTUS Debating Society, as it met this week to offend the sensibilities of sensible Americans.
JUSTICE ALITO: I'm sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election—even a close one, even a hotly contested one -- leave office peacefully, if that candidate is the incumbent.
MICHAEL DREEBEN: Of course.
How sensible of Justice Alito to remind everyone that people who lose elections should leave peacefully, even if they are the incumbent! This is what we would, in a normal society, call “settled law”.
But then we have this weird turn:
JUSTICE ALITO: All right. Now, If an Incumbent who loses a very close hotly contested election, knows that a real possibility after leaving office Is not that the President is going to be able to go off Into a peaceful retirement, but that the President may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us Into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?
This is pure propaganda. It implies that the current situation is that a poor defeated Donald Trump peacefully left office and then his mean, vindictive successor criminally prosecuted him. Apparently, Alito doesn’t know how the law works or how the justice system works or how the courts work. And he didn’t even notice how this was different from the actual situation, where the guy (allegedly) instigated an insurrection that attempted to topple the legitimate government and stop democracy in its tracks. You know, the case before us.
The President cannot criminally prosecute anyone under our system of jurisprudence. Where on earth did this dweeb get the idea that Biden was prosecuting Trump? Is he a QAnon conspiracist?
There’s no real possibility of any President being vindictively prosecuted by a former opponent. Not in the United States I’m familiar with. So, this isn’t an honest question. It’s propaganda.
The proper answer to this question, and one Dreeben should have made, is: “No, we have a system of laws, so this cannot and will not happen in our country.”
Probably he shouldn’t have added, but could have rightfully added, “…as long as we have sensible, honest people on the Supreme Court. So, I’m just hedging my bet here, a little, based on experience.”
I think Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse had the proper response to these Justices debating the issue, as Jamess pointed out in Senator Sheldon Whitehouse puts the Supreme Court's "dilemma" into Stark Focus:
There’s a Constitution. It says that the Court is confined to deciding individual cases or controversy. The case or controversy here is: “Does this indictment violate any kind of immunity protection?” This indictment. And instead, as you’ve pointed out on this show, Lawrence, they went on this long expedition through hypotheticals and through a lot of nonsense. With the result, and perhaps horribly to say the intent, of delay.
[From The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donell on MSNBC]
(Whitehouse goes on to note that in the case of Al Gore, “When it was putting a Republican President in power, they didn’t wast a minute.”)
What this shows is that there are Justices who are intentionally slowing down the federal trial that will determine whether Donald J. Trump:
…did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States—that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted. (In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241)
[United States v. Donald J. Trump before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia]
This indicates that one or more Justices of the Supreme Court believe Donald Trump is guilty, and they are trying to make sure that he can’t be convicted before the election because they are scared that it will be the end of his chances of ever becoming President.
The Democratic Party should be keen to tell the public that the Supreme Court is delaying the trial because some of them believe Donald Trump is guilty as charged.
It has been 3 days since the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on this case. They’ve had weeks to look through the amicus briefs, including one from our senior military officers telling them that granting criminal immunity to the President will create chaos for the military, which has to obey law under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And, after rulings by both the trial court and the appeals court that no such immunity exists.
How long is this going to take them? We need one of the day, hour, minute counters like they have on all the major new channels counting up the days since they took up this case. It’s already been three days. What’s taking them so long?
Look, they know the proper answer. We all know the proper answer. The appeals court gave them the proper answer. The proper answer is that the POTUS has no immunity not literally granted in law, and the case should go back to trial without delay. That’s the correct answer. They know it. I know it. You know it. They are not fooling anyone by fooling around.
So, get on with it.
Also, I want to remind people that I don’t believe the common wisdom that getting elected will put an end to this trial. I don’t think we should ever concede that point, as I noted in Prosecuting the Election Lie Co-Conspirators in the section “Public Service Announcement”. We should make it known right now that even if he’s elected, we expect this trial to go to completion. Anything less is a travesty of justice.
I say this before coming (back) to the point of this article because this was a very serious week. As serious as a freight train.
Fortunately, it ended with some lighter moments.
President Biden:
I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides. But I'm asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment. Move past the horserace numbers, the gotcha moments, and the distractions, the sideshows that have come to sensationalize our politics. And focus on what's actually at stake.
[At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.]
Did I say lighter?
Let me try again:
Colin Jost:
So, let me see if I can summarize where this race stands at this moment. The Republican for President owes half a billion in fines for bank fraud and is currently spending his days farting himself awake during a porn star hush-money trial and the race is tied?
[At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.]
Better. Lighter. But with some accuracy.
And here is the reaction of Scott Jennings, conservative political commentator on CNN:
The joke about the race being tied, actually, I think that was the most biting thing he said about Biden. He lists off all these terrible things about Trump, and then he says, “Yet, the race is tied.” What I didn’t get from him was that he understands why the race is tied.
If you asked the average conservative, “Why is the race tied?” Or, “Why is Trump ahead in all the swing states?” They know. But do the people on the dais and the people in that room know? They’re outraged that the race is tied. But they seem to have little understanding about why that might be.
[Soon after watching the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.]
This is Jennings missing the point. Jost said this to the media, directly to their faces. The point here, in case anyone is missing it, is that the race is “tied” because the media is not doing its job. Refer to what Biden just said: “I'm asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment. … And focus on what's actually at stake.”
The claim by conservatives is that there’s something wrong with the Biden Administration and the way they are leading the country. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the media is twisted to the point it does not call Republicans on their lies and deceit. It focuses on trivia like Biden’s age, which is not pertinent to policy. I theorize this is due to Citizen United and similar misrulings. Which brings us back to the Court.
We saw this week the failure of the Supreme Court to look out for the best interest of the country. The way they fail to follow the Constitution and the most basic premises of democracy. We saw this week the failure of the media. The way they ignore the truth and transmit lies to the public, leading us to the precipice of democracy.
Joking aside, the freight is coming. We’d better be prepared for delivery.