Michael Tae Sweeney: Convicted felon Donald Trump was supposed to be sentenced today, before the Gang of Six on the stolen supreme court re-wrote the rules for him. There's no rule of law in the United States while the courts remain captured.

Convicted felon Donald Trump was supposed to be sentenced today, before the Gang of Six on the stolen supreme court re-wrote the rules for him. There's no rule of law in the United States while the courts remain captured.

As I never tire of pointing out, there's a lesson in how Donald Trump and the Gang of Six conduct themselves - a sweeaping, corrupt, and lawless ruling protecting Trump meant the story DROPPED OUT OF THE NEWS. once it became clear Trump would dodge consequences, the story lost interest and drama.

The lesson for Dems is that securing positive outcomes through aggressive use of similar procedures will not be punished by the press or the electorate. They only care about transfers of power, not norms or laws or following precedent or whatever.

I’d like to agree with this but I don’t think it’s true. I think the press has an ingrained sense that the democrats are the ones who are bound by the rules and republicans aren’t.

Yes, and as we’re seeing, Democrats actually care what the New York Times thinks. Which is, of course, self-defeating and stupid.

I don’t think this can last, though. They are kind of jumping the bullshit shark. We’re at the ‘let’s ridicule them’ phase. People (like me) who remember when they were a more normal newspaper (news mixed with bullshit) are OLD. Younger people won’t trust them or pay attention.

It’s actually a bad development because we will soon have no widely shared frame for news sources even among people not in niche political subcultures. But there’s nothing we can do about it. They mainly want to influence the very rich, and have forgotten the part about doing journalism.

It's the internalisation of "when they go low, we go high", to the point where they don't see the GOP "going low" as worth condemning or Dems "going high" as praiseworthy because they just expect it as the norm.

Sure (though I also have a little bit of a problem with some of the criticism of this quote, because to the people who don’t like it, “going low” means acting maximally within the rules, and to republicans going low means killing people).

Counterpoint: a lot of people thought there would be a big blowback over getting rid of the filibuster for lower court nominees and it didn’t move the needle at all.

Sure, but that was a procedure story, not a scandal.

Fair, but the dynamic works the same. The press will burn themselves out on something if you don’t buckle.

Democrats are protagonists in their game of fallout so any little misstep like accidentally stealing a fork drops them from +1000 karma to +992 and the media freaks out about how their karma has gone down an order of magnitude

Meanwhile the republicans stay pegged at -1000 because it’s way easier to keep that boat steady when all you are doing is patting the local bands of raiders and slavers on the head I didn’t need to really even do a clever analogy here

We correctly disdain people who limit themselves with "norms" and "laws" because neither of those things actually exist. Pretending you uphold them just makes you a moron.

If six freak accident followed by six pardons steal the court right back

This is another reason why Biden should have focused on confronting the ongoing insurrection threat directly instead of hoping voters would save democracy in exchange for a 3% increase in standard of living. Any of the dramatic steps necessary to face the threat would have been media catnip

It's not that it list interest or drama, it's that the consequences became too serious to write about within a both-sides framing

wait he actually wriggled out of this jam???????????????????????? even for the things he has been convicted of??????

delayed the sentencing and is trying to get the conviction thrown out because it relies on things he did during office, even though it's total bullshit interpretation of the official acts thing, he just knows it's like a magic talisman and they seem set to let him treat it that way

incredible. that sucks so much

my working assumption at this point is they'll throw it out because that's how the world works now but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, helpful to keep expectations low these days

I suspect the trial judge will rule that using the stuff they "weren't supposed to use" was Harmless Error. And I suspect Alito et al, will tell the trial judge to go fuck himself.

Keeping expectations low is like the saddest most fucked up thing ever, imho. I get it, but it's not ideal...

I am really REALLY hoping something comes of this, but yeah, keeping expectations low:

Ocasio-Cortez Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against Justice Thomas and Justice Alito | Representative Ocasio-Cortezocasio-cortez.house.gov Washington D.C.—Today, July 10, 2024, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) introduced articles of impeachment against United States Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

technically the conspiracy charge would survive because even if he is immune from prosecution for the crimes he took in furtherance of the conspiracy while in office, the conspiracy itself started prior to the election.

sentencing is delayed pending a brief from his lawyers. they are trying to exclude evidence used a trial and argue that is grounds for an immediate appeal. the evidence btw is his public tweets. they are saying they count as presidential records.

UNBELIEVABLE

The court ruled any record created while president is s presidential record and can not be used as evidence against the president. They did explicitly to prevent his tweets from being used

Hilariously it does open up a ton if conservative people to the most petty violations under the presidential records act: presidential records must be turned into nara after leaving office. This would include anything Trump signed.

wait LOL

of course

ah! well. nevertheless.

Yep. He may actually get the conviction thrown out. I'd argue it's not likely but I have no faith in the Supreme Court not fucking us if that specific case gets up to them.

You'd think the media would be more mad about having this moment stolen from them.

They are truly unbound. Standing? Not an issue. Only a hypothetical case? Sure sounds good, bring it on down. No precedent? We'll make one!

Something something Old Donny Trump wriggling his way out of this one.

i really kinda thought we had him this time, like a fool

Sorry Donald Trump has the invincibility cheat mode activated

He's been gaming the system for six decades. Seems likely he will litigate everything to death (pardon the expression) and in the long meanwhile keep everybody's attention riveted on himself, so Win/Win, a world-weary old cynic mutters.

You know, a fascinating question, @kenwhite.bsky.social might find this interesting, is whether sentencing for criminal contempt can consider crimes committed under the cloak of the John Roberts Our Very Special Boy Presidential Purge Immunity as uncharged conduct.

And now he wants that conviction tossed, just filed the paperwork today. Fuck him and his criminal ways.

Very cool that he might get a conviction for crimes committed before the election thrown out because of the immunity decision.

The issue is there was testimony from people who were part of his staff about conversations that happened while he was in the white house. Under the immunity ruling that testimony is inadmissible.

Wait he doesn't get convicted for crimes he committed *before* being president either?

The filing to throw out the case regards the "official acts" Supreme Court ruling. Trump's team argues that some of the evidence submitted in the case were phone calls about the issue while he was President, therefore the evidence is invalid. The case could still proceed without those calls (maybe).

On a charge which his own employee, at his behest, committed crimes meriting 3-1/2 YEARS in jail, a sentence which Trump successfully HALTED shortening in the middle of a pandemic. Trump made me sympathetic to Michael Cohen, a certified asshole. Commit any crime you wish because there is no God.

Bush got away with lying about WMDs and every President since the Geneva convention is a war criminal, there never was rule of law

A month ago, I marked my calendar as "Jumpsuit Orange Day!" Ah, well.

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